


The Ways of the Force

by magicianparrish



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alive Noah, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Death, M/M, Star Wars AU, all the war and violence that comes with Star Wars in here, pynch-freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianparrish/pseuds/magicianparrish
Summary: “Why are you so interested in me? I’m just some mechanic you stumbled upon. You don’t have one of your own on your crew out there?”Richard Gansey let out a little laugh. “Believe it or not, we don’t. Hadn’t found the perfect one to come with us on our adventures.”Adam raised his eyebrows. “Adventures?”He seemed to light up at Adam’s prodding. “Oh yes. I’m trying to find all I can on the old Jedi Order.”“Do you have a death wish then, Richard Gansey?” Adam inquired, his disbelief in his tone. The Jedi were taboo in all senses.“Please, just Gansey will do. But I’ve been doing this search for a mighty long time. I do think the Jedi are the key to helping this universe find balance again.”“That’s awfully noble of you to believe in.”“What do you believe in then, Adam?” Gansey asked. He felt like he was in a philosophy class again. Adam was never good at philosophy.“Nothing. Myself,” he bluntly stated._______________________________________________________or that Star Wars au no one asked for, but I'm giving to you!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and happy holidays, and happy Star Wars season! I have been thrown head first into the Star Wars world again. From seeing the Last Jedi to being at Disney and surrounded by it everywhere. Because of that, this has been stuck in my thoughts and head for 10 days. And I finally got around to writing it out. 
> 
> This has been so much fun for me because I'm playing around with creating new worlds and species to put into the story. Basically, everyone but Gansey (potentially Henry too, I haven't figured him out yet) are from all new worlds you've never heard of in Star Wars canon. Which is so much fun to me. And will be revealed in due time.
> 
> So this isn't edited, or beta'd by anyone. So all mistakes are mine! I hope you enjoy this!

Adam knew he was better. He knew that he was placed on Sahani, a desert Mid Rim world, that was so close to the Outer Rim it may as well be called that because it was where all the idiots of the Empire wound up. 

The only problem was, Adam Parrish was not an idiot. He was far from it. He had been accepted into the Royal Imperial Academy on Coruscant, and he had graduated the top of his class, in a washout rate of over seventy percent. He was a genius when it came to mechanics and engineering, he had studied under some of the greats the Empire had to offer in his time at the Academy. 

And yet here he was. Stationed on Sahani, where the Empire really couldn’t give less of a shit about because the planet had nothing to offer. Just a bunch of drunkards and criminals, who weren’t doing anything to threaten the power of the Empire, so the Empire turned a blind eye to. It seemed to him that he had come full circle again, being born in a dusty and poor world, only to escape it and then come back to one that was just as horrible. 

He sat alone in his little office that he was granted. His feet were up on a table that was filled with blueprints to ideas that formed in his head but would never actually come to completion or fruition. He had some music playing,  from some musical he saw while he was on Coruscant, in an extremely rare instance he had free time to himself. And he had his tablet in his hands, reading  _ the Republica _ , a more liberal outlet on politics, and one Adam found dangerously traipsed the line between criticizing the Empire directly and just having a certain viewpoint on a few issues. 

_ Another Proclamation by the Emperor Over Imperial Gubernatorial Power Sparks Outrage Among The Senate!  _

Adam quietly reads the article, which slanders the choice to give Imperial governors more power over the worlds they watched. The rhetoric used seemed to be too strong for something that claims to love the Empire. Adam wouldn’t be surprised if the Emperor decided to disband the outlet if they kept things like this up. 

The intercom buzzed, gaining Adam’s attention. He put the Holo down on the desk, and put his feet down and leaned over. He pressed the button, allowing his voice to speak. 

“Lieutenant Parrish,” he answered. 

Static came through, which puzzled Adam. “Oh!” a voice exclaimed, one that Adam didn’t recognize and put him into alert mode. He stood up out of his chair so fast it fell out from under him. “I’m looking for a mechanic.” 

Adam didn’t answer for a few long moments. He could feel his heart pounding. Then he pressed the button down hard and leaned forward so his voice would be heard clearly. 

“You're speaking to him. Who are you, what are you clearance codes for this frequency?” he demanded harshly. 

A second later his screen flashed with a series of codes. He glanced at them quickly, scanning for any falsehoods. His eyes caught one, and he felt panic rise. 

Rebels, he thought to himself. Anywhere rebels went it only brought destruction and death of Imperials, even the lowliest like himself. 

“What the fuck are they doing here?” he muttered to himself. 

Why would they even come to such a backwater world like Sahani? There were no Star Destroyers lurking over the place, no significant power source to mine like the Kyber crystals on Jedha. This was literally a feasting ground for criminals and smugglers and every other low life in the galaxy to hang out in. Adam had barely worked on any Imperial ships in the five years he’s been stationed here. 

“I caught the falsity in your credentials. Rebels you best get away before I pull the alarm on you. There is nothing for you to fight for here,” he sternly warned. 

He hoped the panic didn’t lace into his voice. Thank the force that the hologram projector was broken and he hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet. They’d definitely see the fear on his face whoever they are. 

“Everywhere is the battleground against the Empire,” a girl’s voice came through. 

_ Two of them? _ He screamed in his head. He heard more static and the rustling of something being moved around in whatever carrier they were residing in. The clearing of a throat came through. 

“I didn’t realize I would be in contact with an Imperial. Lieutenant Parrish, you seem like an honorable man, I fear the ship we are residing in needs a few tune-ups, and the closest port was on Sahani. Let us come through and we won’t make any trouble, I promise,” the man’s voice said diplomatically.

He sounded posh and proper. He sounded like the nobility and senators that reside on Coruscant that he heard so many times on the Holo. The very same kinds of people he both loathed and wished to be. 

“This is an Imperially occupied world, as you should know. I question how you seemed to be surprised at the fact,” Adam rebutted. 

“We don’t have time for this bullshit. Let us in or we’ll blow the doors in,” a rough voice came. 

_ Three?!   _ Now he was looking at being horribly outnumbered. “Damn it,” he muttered to himself. 

“You’re clear,” he announced before pushing the button that would allow ship access to enter the hangar and workplace. 

Adam all but ran out of his office. He was the only one who really hung around. Even the stupid Stormtroopers strolled about, leaving Adam alone almost all the time. He made it into the main hangar just in time to see the doors open, allowing the bright shine of the large sun to seep through and make Adam squint and put his hand over to shade his eyes. 

The ship came into view once the doors closed. Adam raked his eyes over what he saw and found himself gobsmacked. He knew at once that it was a yacht, a cruiser ship used for luxury vacations and diplomatic missions to other worlds in the galaxy. It was sleek looking, but the image was ruined by the gaudy orange color it was painted. It had a single black stripe going up the middle and over and back. It was horrendous and beautiful at the same time. 

He watched it land, and he could hear the ship croaking and wheezing, making Adam grimace. A moment later the gangplank came down, and he saw not just three figures, but  _ five _ ! He swallowed audibly, hoping they wouldn’t cause him any trouble. There was just one of him. 

The first figure was a man. He was much shorter than Adam was, but he had the air of confidence, that seemed to demand attention and command armies. His brown hair was polished, he was wearing clothes that looked much too expensive to be a rebel’s, or to be seen on a planet such as Sahani. Adam deduced that he was the man who was talking to Adam over the speaker. 

The man who followed right after him was someone who screamed danger. He was what Adam thought a rebel would look like. He was intimidatingly tall, much taller than the rich man, and he had a few good inches on Adam himself. His head was shaved close, and Adam could see the start of a tattoo curling over his shoulders and neck. He wore a scowl that reminded Adam of a feral panther ready to strike. 

He noticed the two other men and a very short woman from behind, but he was more focused on the intimidating tattooed man stalking towards him. The posh man got to Adam first. Adam looked over and analyzed him. Was even shorter than before over by the ship, and he had flawless tanned skin that came from vacationing in idyllic worlds. He gave Adam a bright smile, showing off his dimples and perfect teeth. His hazel eyes bright, something Adam never had. 

“You must be Lieutenant Parrish,” he said. 

Adam felt a different sort of intimidation. Unlike the tall tattooed man who stood menacingly behind, this man, the leader if Adam was to make a guess, was everything Adam would never be. Clean cut, sure of his abilities and a sense of charisma born out of being wealthy and from a sort of nobility. Adam didn’t want to say the wrong thing, and then have him and the hangar be blown up into oblivion. 

He stood up straighter, suddenly self-conscious of his dirtied work clothes. He wasn’t even in the proper Imperial attire. He was in his coveralls which were tied around his waist and had a stained white shirt over. From behind he heard the menacing man scoff and roll his eyes. Adam issued a glare. 

“That would be me,” he confirmed. 

“Some lieutenant. Empire’s really going to shit if you’re all that they got,” he insulted. 

Adam was ready to issue a scathing remark before he was cut off. The tanned man held out a hand. 

“A pleasure it is! Really, I must thank you for allowing us into your hangar. Though, it is very surprising given that all Imperials seem to do is chase us down nowadays. I’m Richard Gansey, captain of the Camaro Pig, and this is my crew.” 

Adam didn’t shake Richard Gansey’s hand, but he arched an eyebrow at the mention of the name of the ship. It certainly felt right, considering the orange monstrosity it was. Instead, he crossed his arms and continued to scrutinize the crew. 

“What do you need fixing?” he ventured. He wanted them out of his hangar sooner rather than later. It would be his luck that an inspection would happen while he was harboring rebels, and then they’d all be killed, probably in ruthless and horrible ways.

“My ship here has been through, ah, some crossfire recently and has suffered some damage.” 

“What kind of damage are we talking?” Adam asked. He didn’t like the vagueness of Richard Gansey. He could only help if he knew what it was exactly that needed to be fixed. He wasn’t going to spend all day looking at the intricacies of a luxury yacht. Even though he seemed to have all the time in the galaxy. 

This was the most interesting thing to happen to him in the past five years. Perhaps that was another reason why he decided to let them land. He needed some new action in his life, as it was rather, terribly boring and pathetic. 

Richard Gansey had the gall to look bashful in the presence of Adam. He put his hands on his hips, drawing the attention to the horribly colorful and bright clothes he was wearing. 

“That is a question I do not have the answer to I’m afraid. I love this ship, but I don’t know much about what makes her tick. But, I think I can show you where I think the problem is arising from. Please follow me.” 

Adam walked passed the other man and ignored the other people of his crew. Richard Gansey walked inside his ship, and the hood of it popped open and he came jogging back out. Adam headed over to grab a ladder so he’d be able to see the ship properly, as well as his toolkit. It wouldn’t do him any good to identify the problem but not fix it. 

He climbed up it and took a look at the ship. His eyes widened at what he saw. It seemed to be a hodge-podge of different types of parts from different worlds all put together. He barely had any idea where to start. He took his head out to glance at Richard Gansey. 

“What kinda ship is this anyway?” he asked incredulously. 

“A Naboo yacht cruiser, from the Republic times,” Richard Gansey said with a hint of joy and pride in his voice. 

Adam rolled his eyes. “Figures,” he muttered to himself before sticking his torso into the ship’s insides. He tinkered around for a few minutes, trying to figure out what the problem could be. 

“Perhaps the problem might be that the ship is old,” he suggested. “It is from the Republic era.” 

“You just insulted Dick’s child, Parrish,” the gruff voice of the tall stranger said. Adam let out a huff and turned his attention to him. 

“And who the fuck are you again?” he asked in exasperation. 

The man let out a sharp grin that was not friendly. It seemed to make him even more intimidating. Adam would stand his ground though. The rest of the...rebels seemed to be nice enough. They hadn’t shot at him yet just for being an Imperial, which was a good sign at least. 

“Your worst nightmare, Imperial shit,” he growled. 

“Ronan!” Richard Gansey exclaimed in a scandalized voice. “Do not insult Lieutenant Parrish. He is  _ helping _ us.” 

The other three members of the crew came up at this moment. All of them were human or at least near-humans. The one who stood out the most was the man with the pale blue pigmentation and white hair. He beamed a smile at Adam and waved, and Adam didn’t know how to properly respond. The man next to the blue one was wearing garish clothing to match Richard Gansey’s, but it was much more fashionable and stylish. His black hair was gelled upwards. The short woman had a matching scowl to the tattooed man named Ronan’s. 

“Yeah, but as soon as he fixes the Pig, he’s going to call in backup and have us shot out of the sky,” she pointed out. 

Adam admitted it was a reasonable suspicion. Any other Imperial already would’ve done that. But he wouldn’t do that to them. He had always admired the idea of the Rebellion. Even though he had gone to the most prestigious academy the Empire has to offer. But it wasn’t because he wanted to bask in the glory of it. It was simply a way to get off his dreaded homeworld and away from his old life and forge a new one for himself. And it seemed to have gotten him nowhere. 

“Honestly, if this guy wanted us dead, he wouldn’t have even let us land in the first place,” the other extravagantly dressed man countered. 

“I bet this is all one big ruse. Get us to trust him marginally and then sic the dogs on us,” she argued back. 

The blue man let out a laugh. “Imperials aren’t that smart.” 

Adam looked back up from the ship and threw a glare at the blue man. “I resent that statement.” 

“Oh yeah?” Ronan challenged. 

“I was top of my class at the Royal Imperial Academy,” Adam spat back. He was proud of his achievements and he wouldn’t let some rebel insult him like that. He worked too hard for them to be thrown away. 

“Wow, the Empire is really using your talents for good then. Throwing you into some backwater world to fix the ships of whoever is unfortunate enough to land here.” 

And just like that, the truth was spat right back into his face. Adam wished he had something back to counter Ronan. But he didn’t because he wouldn’t deny the truth. He felt his face burn with shame and embarrassment. His two hearts pounding hard in his chest, pumping blood to color it dark red. And then he felt the anger course through him. 

He slammed his wrench he was using to the ground and stomped off the ladder. He glared at all of them. 

“I know the problem, but you don’t deserve my help. So good luck getting off this hellhole in one piece,” he exclaimed before stomping off back towards his office. 

“Lieutenant Parrish!” Richard Gansey called out from behind. Adam didn’t look back. He didn’t want them to see his shame that was hidden underneath the mask of anger and fury. 

Richard Gansey called out a few more times and followed Adam as he made his way into his little-cramped room. Finally, Adam had enough. 

“That was not permission for you to follow me,” Adam gritted out as he turned to face Richard Gansey. 

What he saw was a look of awe on Richard Gansey’s face. The lighting in the office was dim, but there was enough sunlight from the outside to give it a little life. Richard Gansey wondered towards Adam’s desk, which still had the blueprints of projects in his mind on it. He picked one up and stared at it before Adam’s snatched it roughly out of his hands. 

“There is no permission for you to touch any of my stuff either.” 

Richard Gansey looked at Adam like he had hung the sun that Sahani orbited around. Adam didn’t understand why he was receiving it. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Adam bit out defensively. 

“Because those are some of the most brilliant designs I’ve seen! The engineering is genius! How in the galaxy did you end up at this post?” Gansey said with awe. 

Adam felt his face flush again at the praise. He didn’t hear it all that often and was not used to it. “Those are scrap dreams and nothing more. And it is none of your business as to how I ended up here.” 

Adam did not want to disclose how he ended up on Sahani either. Or at least the suspicion he had for being posted here. Especially to a stranger whom he had just met, and especially to someone like Richard Gansey who just screamed:  _ privileged! _

“You don’t seem to give yourself enough credit,” Richard Gansey commented. 

Adam rolled his eyes and picked up the rest of his blueprints and stuffed them inside a drawer. “You literally just met me. How could you even know anything about me?” 

Richard Gansey just shrugged his shoulders. Adam hated how pristine he looked even in shitty lighting, while he looked like the dirt he’d been born in. “Intuition, perhaps.” 

Adam narrowed his eyes. “What like the Force or whatever?” 

He wasn’t a believer. Even though his people were. Adam found that if the Force or whatever higher being there was, was supposed to bind the universe together and create peace and harmony of the light and darkness, he’d been given the short end of the stick with no light and more darkness. 

“If you believe in something like that, yes.” 

“Well, I don’t. Now if you don’t have anything else for me, you can dismiss yourself out of my hangar.” 

Richard Gansey looked ashamed now. “I really am sorry about the way my crew reacted. It is just that all the other Imperials we’ve encountered have not been as hospitable and welcoming as you have.” 

“Whatever. It’d be best if you left sooner than later. Sahani doesn’t have much of an Imperial force around it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist either.” Adam would play it off that the comments didn’t bother him. 

Adam hoped it would get Richard Gansey away from him so he could be alone again. But Richard Gansey did not do such a thing. Instead, he leaned against the desk and looked at Adam, like no one had ever looked at him before. 

“You are truly magnificent, Lieutenant Parrish,” he breathed out. 

“Adam,” he offered. Adam had no idea why he would give such a thing out to a virtual stranger. 

“Pardon?” Gansey asked. 

“Don’t call me Lieutenant Parrish. My name is Adam.” 

“Oh. Well, Adam my statement still stands. I am still hoping you’ll help me fix the Pig. You seem to know so much about ships, and from what I’ve seen you know what you’re talking about.” 

The two of them stared at each other for a few long moments. “Why?” Adam asked. 

Richard Gansey cocked his head to the side, his face scrunching up in confusion. “Why, what?” 

Adam bit his lip and moved his jaw from side to side. “Why are you so interested in me? I’m just some mechanic you stumbled upon. You don’t have one of your own on your crew out there?” 

Richard Gansey let out a little laugh. “Believe it or not, we don’t. Hadn’t found the perfect one to come with us on our adventures.” 

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Adventures?”

He seemed to light up at Adam’s prodding. “Oh yes. I’m trying to find all I can on the old Jedi Order.” 

“Do you have a death wish then, Richard Gansey?” Adam inquired, his disbelief in his tone. The Jedi were taboo in all senses. 

“Please, just Gansey will do. But I’ve been doing this search for a mighty long time. I do think the Jedi are the key to helping this universe find balance again.” 

“That’s awfully noble of you to believe in.” 

“What do you believe in then, Adam?” Gansey asked. He felt like he was in a philosophy class again. Adam was never good at philosophy. 

“Nothing. Myself,” he bluntly stated. It had been only himself that had gotten him out of his homeworld, away from his family who didn’t want him. But he seemed to be at a standstill in his life. Perhaps he wanted to believe in what Gansey was spewing. 

He had a vague remembrance of the Jedi and the Clone Wars that ravaged the galaxy. He’d only been a child then, and war had managed to leave his world relatively unscathed. He remembered a tall Jedi with a mechanical hand and another with red hair and an accent visiting his world once. The Jedi and the Force were a big part of his society, and they had wanted to protect their temple at all costs.

Gansey nodded his head like he was really taking his point of view into consideration. “Would you like to join me then?” 

“And what, desert my post? I’d have a bounty on my head,” Adam countered. He couldn’t do that, even if he desired to. 

“We all have bounties on our heads. No one but the Emperor or Lord Vader are safe it seems. You deserve better, Adam. This place will suffocate you.” 

Gansey was right. This place had been killing him, and Adam just didn’t notice it. The mundaneness of every day had been constricting around him slowly until his two hearts would give out and he’d die. His talents were being wasted...doing what? Playing sabacc with some dimwitted Stormtroopers occasionally, and trying not to get robbed by pirates or bounty hunters? This was not the life he had dreamed for himself. And this was not the life he wanted either. 

“What, I’ll get shit on by your crew for my ever move too then?” Adam was just arguing to make up excuses for himself. The deal was too good to be true. 

“I’ll have them all apologize to you about that later, I promise. Especially Ronan. We all have our issues with Imperials it seems, and I don’t think you are exempt from that either.” 

How was it that these people seemed to be able to see right through Adam. Adam who had prided himself on being unknowable for his entire life. If he was honest with himself, he’d say it scared the shit out of him. But he would never reveal those thoughts to anyone but his own mind and perhaps the void of space where no one would hear them except the stars. He would hold on to his secrets with a vice grip. 

Adam stood up from his seat and walked out the door and towards the hangar without another word. It was his way of accepting Gansey and his crew of the Camaro Pig. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for the great support! I was a little worried about this because I feel like Star Wars is an acquired taste haha. But you've all been wonderful. Your comments have been amazing and helped me knock this next part out, which was giving me trouble. 
> 
> Now, on to the next chapter!This was not edited or beta'd so all mistakes are mine. I hope you all enjoy it!

It took Adam a while to fix the problem on the Camaro Pig. The entire engine was a big mess. All the parts seeming to be made by different companies, and from a variety of materials found on specific worlds. Adam had never seen anything like it in his life. And he’d worked on Star Destroyers. 

The plasma core was the most interesting part of the ship though. Adam knew it was unique to Naboo, he remembered reading about it in his textbooks while he studied relentlessly at the Academy. He’d seen his fair share of luxury ships in his lifetime. He worked on them on his homeworld, hoping the rich humans who demanded the service would spare some change for his labor. No matter how many times he encounters one of these, it still awes him and a stab of envy pushes through his body.

Now that he was able to actually look at the cruiser, he could see the orange paint chipping off and underneath it was a sleek silver chrome. Why in the galaxy would someone paint that over, especially an eyesore color such as this orange? It seemed disgraceful to ruin such a beautiful ship like that. 

Adam wondered what this ship had seen. It was an old model, from the Republic era, yes. But the fall of the Republic happened only fifteen standard revolutions ago. This ship was made before the Fall. If he was to go by the insides it was at least made thirty years prior to the Empire. He’d have to actually check the code of the ship to see precisely. 

And he also knew the defining history of Naboo and the world’s people. The Emperor was a native of the world; at least that was the rumor that circulated around occasionally underground. So much has changed since the time of the Republic, it was hard to determine what was the truth or a fabrication. 

In a holo one time, he read up on the Republic and the fall of it. He recalled one of the main actors in the fall, albeit indirectly by trying to do the good thing was Naboo Senator, and former queen of the world, Padmé Amidala. 

Adam found her to be something too good to be true. A child queen at fourteen, leading an attack against the old Trade Federation holding her homeworld hostage. Fighting at the First Battle of Geonosis, that ignited the bloody Clone Wars, and other battles throughout the war. Outspoken in her beliefs, and always ornately dressed, and a masterful orator. And dying a mysterious and tragic death suddenly on the same day the Republic had fallen, and the Empire had risen out of its carnage and ashes. Her story sounded like something out of a fiction. Just as mystical and wonderful as the stories of the Jedi and the Force. 

So it went back to his thoughts, of what type of history this ship had in the past. And how Richard Gansey had come to be in possession of it. An electric shock of placing his hand on a live wire shook him out of his thoughts. He yanked his hand away roughly and pounded his fist into the rim of the ship. 

“Fuck,” he cursed out. Both for the pain of the shock and the fact that he had forgotten his own strength and now there was a nice fist-shaped dent where he had hit his hand down. He turned around to face the crew of the Camaro Pig. He gave a sheepish grimace. 

“Sorry, I’ll fix it,” he muttered softly. 

Adam glanced over at Ronan whose hard glare had fractured for a moment to look at the dent and then at Adam. He had a sharp eyebrow raised and his arms crossed. 

“Pack some punch, Parrish.” 

It seemed to be as close as a compliment he’d ever get from someone like Ronan. Adam didn’t want that to be something praised. He just hoped that it wouldn’t alert them to anything suspicious about Adam; the fact that he wasn’t human. He was a near-human species, but not one that is regarded highly by the humans of the galaxy. The only thing he had was the fact that he was very much so human passing. The only things giving him away are the luminescent irises of his eyes when in dark places. His bone structure allowing him to have the strength to dent a ship, and the two hearts he possessed were all internal mechanisms that he could hide from the outside world. 

He finished the repairs as quickly as he could. It really should’ve been helped by more than one person, but he was the only one who knew anything about engineering and mechanics. And he didn’t trust any of the crew to be helpful to him, especially having heard their recent opinions of him simply based off of first impressions. 

Adam packed the tools back into his box and slid down the ladder with ease of muscle memory. He wiped some grease that came from tinkering on the insides of a ship onto his coveralls and tried to resist the urge to wipe the sweat off his face, lest he wipes grease and makes more of a mess. 

“Your ship should be working better now,” Adam announced. 

“Thank the galaxy! It is  _ way _ too hot to be standing here another minute!” the blue man exclaimed. 

Adam did not know the name of the man, as he had not been introduced to the crew. And he did not know what species he was. At first, Adam had thought him to be Pantoran, but he did not have the distinct markings on his face or have the holier-than-thou attitude they tended to give themselves. There weren’t many near-human species that had blue pigmentation. But Adam did not fool himself into believing he knew the entire galaxy and all that inhabited it. Barely anyone knew about his people either, or, he thought, the galaxy and Republic would have cared more about the injustices they suffered when it had been around. 

Gansey strolled up to him with a grin plastered across his face. He clapped his hands together. “Magnificent. Would you be able to tell me how you got her to work for me again?” 

Adam could feel his face shifting into one of reluctance. He didn’t want to explain all the logistics of fixing a ship. It was all mental calculations and science that was often hard to put words to in his own head, no less trying to dumb it down to someone who doesn’t even know the bare basics of fixing a ship. 

“I don’t really want to get into the details of it. It gets kind of complicated and hard to explain,” Adam said with a shrug. 

He heard Ronan scoff. Adam was really tired of this guy, and he’d only met him today. He cast a withering glare towards the tall man, daring him to say anything else. Ronan decided to take him up on it. 

“What? Fancy Royal Academy alumni too good to try and tell us, lowlifes, how a ship works?” 

Adam let a huff of air blow through his nose. He then ran his hands through his hair, tugging at the roots and letting out a grunt of annoyance. The pain of it grounded him a little.  

“Fucking hell. I can’t explain it to you because I don’t even know what I fucking did. This ship is just made up of a bunch of different parts that shouldn’t be able to work together, and yet they do somehow. I just played around until it seemed okay. And I never thought of any of you as low lifes, so stop the fucking insults to get me riled up like this!” 

It was completely silent in the hangar. Adam’s hearts were beating rapidly, and he was breathing kind of heavy. He looked down at his feet, feeling his face become a flame of red. He felt angry at himself for letting his anger get a hold of him like that and taking it out on a virtual stranger. A stranger who looked very dangerous and could probably take out his blaster and shoot him right there and be done with him. 

He let out another sigh and managed to look up at Gansey who looked troubled by the altercation that had just happened. Adam ran a hand through his hair again and gestured vaguely to the ship. 

“It should work now. I won’t report you to my bosses if you get out of here quickly,” he said. 

He pursed his lips and gave a final nod before walking past. 

“Adam-” Gansey started. 

Adam held up a hand to silence him without looking back as he made his way into the office. He shook his head at his own naiveté. Harboring fantasy thoughts like going out on adventures with this scraggly group of rebels. Looking for artifacts of the lost Jedi Order that fell when the Empire rose. Allowing himself to be imagined in that scenario instead of choking on the sand of Sahani and burning from the intense sun. 

He let out a bitter laugh. Who did he think he is anyway? 

As he looked around his office, he caught the sight of his transmitter button beeping. He scrambled to get to it and pushed it down. 

“Lieutenant Parrish,” he greeted. 

“Lieutenant Parrish, my name is Commander Colin Greenmantle,” the smooth voice said over the transmitter. 

Adam let his head bow. “Shit,” he whispered softly away from the speaker before he lifted his head back up. He sucked in a deep breath. 

“What can I do for you today, Commander?” he asked. 

“A shame that your hologram projector seems to be broken, so we can’t talk face to face. Not enough time to fix it, hmmm?” he mocked. 

Adam had to bite a scathing remark back. He had to remind himself this was a superior officer to him. “I’ll ask again, what can I do for you today? What brings you to the wasteland of Sahani?” 

“Straight to business it is with you, I guess. Well, I’ve been sent by both our higher-ups to track a band of, let’s call them rebels, who seem to be harboring illegal items. And I’ve tracked them to this system and this world. Do you know perhaps where they could be?” 

“Rebels, in all senses of the term, come into this world every day Commander. It is a hotspot for criminal activity after all. I would not be shocked if a group of them did come on world today. Anything else sir?” 

Adam had learned quickly in life that the best lies were the ones closest to the truth. He didn’t like being a liar, but he was good at it. The connection between the two of them was silent for a few long moments. 

“May I come into your hangar lieutenant? I see you are in need of an inspection soon anyway.” 

Adam could hear a coverup when he heard one. But he was still his superior officer. Flat out denying him in would cause much more suspicion and a harder getaway. 

“Yes, Commander. Send in your clearance codes for me please.” 

“Must I have to do such a thing?” he asked back in annoyance. 

Not really. But Adam wanted to mess around with him and also make as much time as he could to quickly rewire things in his office that led to the hangar so the doors would open more delayed. 

“Yes, Commander. It is the proper Imperial protocol that you do such a thing. Even if I know it is you.” 

He heard a sigh come from the commander. “Fine, fine.” 

Adam immediately let go of the transmitter button and opened up the power box of the hangar that was in his office. He quickly glanced over all the wires that were set up and picked up the green one that he knew opened the front doors of the hangar. He rewired them to another part of the box, and to other wires that led to other things. He hoped it would work and delay the doors opening fast enough that they could make an escape through the back doors. 

He glanced back and saw the clearance codes coming through onto his holo-screen. He didn’t even check them this time around. He pressed down the transmitter button. “Commander, you are clear. Standby for me.” 

Adam let go of the button. He hurried over and pushed the button that would open the back doors first, and then hit the front doors. They were all on a timer now. Adam ran back into the main hangar where the crew was still loitering around. 

“I need everyone to get onto that ship now!” he shouted. 

They all turned at the same time, various looks of confusion on their faces. Adam turned his head upwards to the slowly opening front doors. He gestured wildly with his arms. 

“If we want to make it out of this altercation alive, then we need to get moving! Let’s go!” he continued. 

They still didn’t move. “Do I have to fucking spell it out! There is an Imperial Commander arriving in a few moments. If you want to make it out alive, you best get in that stupid ship of yours and fly away!” 

That seemed to snap them all out of whatever haze they’d been in. Immediately they all sprinted inside the ship, Gansey, and Ronan at the cockpit. Everyone else seemed to have a station they were well accustomed to. 

He felt the ship buzz into life, and he ran the way Gansey and Ronan went. The cockpit door opened up. 

“Go out the back doors,” he told them. He leaned in between the two of them and pointed in the direction of the doors. Gansey nodded his head and maneuvered his ship off the ground and towards that way.  

The high screech of blasters suddenly came through the hangar. 

“Shit!” Ronan screamed as he helped Gansey navigate. The ship seemed to require two people to get it going. 

“This thing has blasters right?” Adam asked out of breath. He’d never been in the crossfire of weapons before. 

“Sort of. The Naboo aren’t exactly known for their weapons cruisers though. But Ronan somehow managed to secure a few on in case of things like this happening,” Gansey explained. 

“I thought you said no one was a mechanic or engineer on your crew? How did you manage to do that?” Adam wondered. 

“No time for chit-chat Parrish. Just know I did it. Gansey get us out of here!” Ronan barked. 

Ronan took hold of another controller and pushed forward with his entire body when he pressed the little red buttons on the top. Green laser blasters came out from the ship hitting what Adam assumed was Commander Greenmantle’s. 

The Camaro Pig flew out of the back doors with a surprising speed Adam did not expect from the old ship and flew high into the atmosphere until they reached space. Gansey put a pair of headphones on. 

“Jane, how is hyperspace looking? Any particular planet?” he asked into the microphone. 

Gansey nodded and typed in the coordinates. “Kaan? Why there?” 

Adam couldn’t hear what the two were talking about. But he did know that Kaan was one of the moons that surrounded Kaansala. His homeworld. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....and we find out where Adam is from! And I hinted at Gansey's too. Adam's planet is entirely made up by yours truly, and you'll find out more about it and the species Adam is and what the whole thing with that is all about.
> 
> I also had to put my girl, Padmé Amidala in there because she deserves more recognition then she gets tbh. And this isn't some alternate universe Star Wars, all the main players in that universe are still in this one. The story just focuses on our lovely Gangsey and will stay separate in terms of that. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are always appreciated and welcomed. They really do help me to continue writing, even if I don't always respond to all of them, know I do read them at least 5 times each. Thanks everyone!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year's Eve, or Happy New Year, depending on where you are in the world! As a parting gift to 2017, here is a chapter for you all! 
> 
> And once again, thank you so much for all your comments and feedback. I never expected the reaction to be like this, and I'm so happy and grateful for you all. And I'm sorry I haven't responded back to your comments. You'll find I'm bad at keeping that up, so it's nothing against you! 
> 
> This chapter is kind of boring and has no action in it. But...we do get formally introduced to all the characters! Yay!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this gift to you. And as always was not beta'd or edited so all mistakes are mine.

Adam felt the anxiety building up in his chest. Even the wonderful looking wormhole of hyperspace couldn’t quell it. He also hates flying. Because of this fear, many people had laughed him off, dismissing him by saying things like: “then you’re in the wrong galaxy, kid,” or “says the guy who builds ships? Ironic isn’t?”. 

The fact that the Camaro Pig is heading towards Kaan, one of the four moons that orbit Kaansala, the homeworld he thought he’d left behind for good all those years ago, did not help any matters. And he was still recovering from his first actual battle; if one could even call it that. Whatever it was, it still shook him up. 

He had left the cockpit after they made it into hyperspace to wander around the ship. The inside was just as gaudy looking as the outside. It looked lived in. The interior was beautifully crafted, but it was covered in decorations and things grabbed from other worlds Adam hadn’t been to. There were empty glasses, bottles, and cans all over the floor in the lounge area. The booth that surrounded a sabacc table was cracked and colored a dirty red. 

Adam sat down on it to gather his thoughts, and to help with the queasiness he felt being on a ship in space. Now that he wasn’t fearing for his life, he had time to think about what this means for his life now. He was a rebel, a mutineer of the Empire. 

Sure, his job was boring and very mundane. And his talents didn’t get the recognition he thinks he deserved. But the whole point in going to the Academy in the first place was to get off his world and forge a better and more successful life for himself. And in some ways he did. He did get off-world, and he did get the success he was looking for there. He was able to prove himself that yes, Adam Parrish can actually do something with himself instead of staying on his world the rest of his life and becoming like his parents, and his parents’ parents. 

And having a job like that was at least stable. He could count on it to always be there, because he had graduated from the Academy, and proved himself at least semi-valuable in the Empire’s eyes. He knew he’d always get paid, and there was just the sense of stability in a bureaucratic system. Now, that stability has crumbled at his feet, leaving him thoroughly shaken.

A hand was slapped on the table in front of his face. Adam hadn’t heard the person come up and startled, nearly falling out of the seat he was in. His hearts pumping erratically, he looked up to see it was the woman Gansey had called Jane. And behind her was the rest of the crew minus Gansey. They all were wearing various degrees of murderous glares. Adam gulped as he looked at all of them.  

“I knew you’d pull something like this! I told you all!” Jane exclaimed pointing a finger at Adam. 

“Maybe we’ve only run into the stupid Imperials. Lucky us we got the one smart one on our ship,” the man with the high hair stated. 

“And I’ll beat the shit out of him before dumping his sorry ass on Kaan and leaving him there,” Ronan growled. 

Adam fixed his own glare at all of them. “What the hell are you talking about? I saved your fucking asses back there! I’m glad I’m getting the thanks from you all.” 

Jane crossed her arms and scoffed. “Saved us? Tell us why an Imperial Commander came to your hanger just as we were there at the same time.” 

Adam stood up and towered over Jane. For the first time, he saw her wither a little bit underneath his shadow. “I’ll tell you why. Apparently, this guy has been hunting after you for a while now and found you. He asked me to let him in, and I couldn’t just say no, otherwise it would’ve made him suspicious and blow the entire hangar up with no preamble. I bought you all time by rewiring the front hangar doors to delay the opening so you could make your getaway. You’re all fucking welcome,” Adam seethed. 

All of them were silent in Adam’s wake. It was tense in the small area, but Adam seemed to get his message through to them all. Just because he worked for the Empire doesn’t mean he is a horrible person with no ethics or morals. For him, it wasn’t really a choice in the matter. The Empire brought more opportunities to Adam then his homeworld or old jobs would’ve ever given him. Not everyone was born to just be a rebel. 

“Adam is correct. He did in fact save us, when he could’ve stayed behind and let that commander catch and kill us. But he put himself, his job and his safety at risk for us. And he deserves a couple of apologies and a few nods of gratitude don’t you think?” Gansey said walking in and joining them. 

At least he had one person in his corner. He bowed his head to look at his hands as the rest of the crew silently talked among themselves. A moment later he felt the seat shift next to him as someone sat down. Adam looked up to see it was the blue man. He looked much more innocent up close. His gray eyes were downcast and he had a grimace on his face before he made eye contact with Adam. 

“Thank you for getting us out of there, Adam. I’m sorry we’ve been going rough on you instead of giving the gratitude you deserve.” 

His voice was whispy and soft-spoken, and Adam could tell the guy was sincere. So he nodded his head in acceptance. Jane sat down next to him. She still looked a little put off about the entire thing, but she softened a little. 

“Same here. You’re the only Imperial who seems to have a heart around here,” she said. 

Adam continued not to say anything. He really didn’t know what to say anyway. The other man with the high hair then sat down and wrapped his arm around Jane’s shoulders. He gave a toothy smile. 

“And I second all of these statements and apologies. Adam, please have no hard feelings. We now owe you a debt.” 

Those words struck a chord in Adam. The idea of being in debt to someone or something was not new for him. In fact it had been the normal all his young life. But to hear it coming from someone else, it threw Adam for a loop. 

The crew and Adam turned towards Gansey and Ronan. Ronan still had his arms crossed over his chest in a hostile manner and was glaring at the galaxy. Gansey let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. 

“Ronan, anything to say to Adam?” he poked. 

Ronan looked over at Adam, his blue eyes strikingly piercing. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment before Ronan broke it. He snarled and grunted before storming out and away from them. Adam was puzzled. Gansey turned with a rueful smile on his face and sat down with a sigh. 

“That means he’s sorry. I know it means nothing to you probably, but Ronan isn’t really the apologetic type.” 

Neither was Adam, truthfully. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s fine.” 

Gansey looked like he was going to argue, but let it drop. He clapped his hands together with a new smile on his face. 

“It seems we never got to properly introduce ourselves to you. Now seems like the best time.” 

No one verbally agreed with him, but Adam could see in their faces that they did. So Gansey continued on, in the way a leader does. 

“As you already know, my name is Richard Gansey, the owner of the wonderful Naboo cruiser fondly called the Camaro Pig. Let’s see, what else about myself? Well, I am from Naboo and as far as I know, am a human as well.” 

It was a light attempt at a joke, which Adam gave him a little credit for, but didn’t laugh. When it fell short, Gansey gestured towards the high haired man. He turned to Adam and cleared his throat dramatically. 

“Thanks RG three. My name is Henry Cheng, the stylish technician on this mess of a beautiful ship we have. Adam, my engineer compliment, we will be sure to have a grand time together as this ship needs to be fixed and re-wired quite a lot. I hail from the peaceful world of Gatalenta.” 

He paused in his dramatic introduction. Adam looked over Henry Cheng, from his dramatic hairstyle to his clothing choice. He raised his eyebrows, and Henry put his hand out to stop Adam from speaking. 

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking Adam Parrish. I love my world, but the Chengs always seemed to have a little rebellion in us. I couldn’t stand the austere clothing and hair I had to wear on Gatalenta, so when I left, I put that behind me. And now you have the wonderful looks that you see today! Throwing the ball to you next!” 

He mimicked throwing a ball to Jane who played along and caught it with a smirk on her face. She turned to Adam. 

“The name’s Blue Sargent.” 

“I thought it was Jane?” Adam asked confused. She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“Only Gansey calls me that. You can call me Blue, or Sargent, whichever you prefer and nothing else.” 

Adam nodded. Blue seemed pleased at that. “I’m your navigator of the galaxy. Which means I know what planets are safe or not, what to expect when we go on world, all that jazz.” 

“Where are you from then?” he inquired. He was curious to see where all of them came from, and how they all somehow found each other. 

She raised her eyebrows and leaned back in her seat. “Oracelpha. Or as the galaxy seems to dub it, the witch world. But no, I am not a witch. And don’t ask anymore questions.” 

“Cool,” was all Adam said in turn. Blue cocked her head to the blue man. He beamed a smile at Adam. 

“I’m Noah Czerny! I’m the local scavenger of the crew.” He paused for a moment re-thinking his words. “Well, that’s a bad way of putting it. What I mean is, I’m the best at finding the things we’re looking for, so I help determine where we should go. I’m also the resident Jedi expert on the crew.” 

“You know a lot about the Jedi?” Adam asked in wonder. 

Noah nodded his head. “Yes sir!” He turned to Gansey. “And we picked a good place to stop. I am almost positive Kaansala, the main planet that Kaan orbits has a Jedi Temple. Which could lead to interesting discoveries.” 

Adam didn’t know how he felt about that. But the crew of the Camaro Pig didn’t seem to have any problems with someone knowing so much about the taboo that is the Jedi, or even the sheer stupidity that came with looking for hidden artifacts of a order dead. Noah then turned back to Adam. 

“And I also come from the frigid world of Duchalet.” 

Adam had never heard of the planet. “Is it close to Pantora?” 

Noah scoffed and guffawed. “Sorta. I know, we Ducha and Pantorans look very much alike. But in my own humble opinion, the Ducha are much cooler. Plus, we can do this!” 

Adam watched as Noah’s body seemed to shimmer and change to the color of the seat they were sitting in. Adam blinked to make sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light deceiving his eyes. But Noah was still there, and he blended seamlessly in with his surroundings. It was the most magnificent thing he’s ever seen. He had so many questions. In another blink, Noah was back to normal. 

“How did you do that?” Adam asked, still stunned. 

Noah beamed with pride. “The amazing genetics of the Ducha. Before our world became a luxury vacation spot and we made some serious credits off of it, we had to hunt and hide from the nasty predators that roam the terrain. Evolution, or the Force whatever you believe in, or perhaps both, gave us the ability to camouflage with our surroundings. It is very helpful when on the run.” 

“Amazing.” 

“And of course you have gotten yourself ah, acquainted, with Ronan I see,” Gansey started. “He’s my co-pilot, but he mostly knows his way around ships, and is the best pilot I know.” 

“Gotten us out of some bad situations,” Blue added with a nod. 

“Is he always this hostile to new people? Or is it just because I was an Imperial?” 

Henry leaned forward. “Oh, he’s like that to all new people. He gave me shit for months when I first joined. Thinks everyone is going to take Gansey away from him or something.” He tilted his head to the side and put it in his hand. “But it doesn’t help that you’re an Imperial. Or I should say, ex-Imperial.” 

“Well that’s good to know, I guess.” 

Noah leaned forward. Since he was the closest to Adam, he really got in his face. His gray eyes were bright even in the bad lighting. 

“Oh, your eyes are beautiful Adam Parrish! The bluest I’ve ever seen!”

Adam immediately turned away from Noah. He silently cursed the bad lighting for starting to expose him like this. They couldn’t know what he was. He wouldn’t allow them to know. He just wanted to pass off as a human. 

“Thanks,” he muttered. 

“So Adam, where do you come from?” Gansey inquired. 

He shrugged his shoulders. “Coruscant.” 

“Really? How interesting. I know I said I was from Naboo, and I am, but my parents are very involved with politics, especially before the Empire rose. So I spent many times and days on Coruscant with my family. Truly is one of a kind. Though I haven’t been back since before.” 

Adam couldn’t imagine what Coruscant was like before the Empire. Probably not much had changed. It would still be an entire planet engulfed by a metropolis. But it was also where the Jedi Temple was, and the beautiful Senate building. Home to so much of the galaxy’s history. The atmosphere was probably different during the times Gansey frequented. Adam didn’t have much experience besides the Academy. He rarely wandered off campus. 

“Dick, we’re landing on Kaan now,” Ronan’s rough voice came over a PA. 

Gansey stood up and clapped his hands together. “Let’s see what Kaan has to offer us.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked it! I found this chapter so much easier to write because now the whole crew is together! I also saw the Last Jedi again today, which also inspired me to finish this chapter. 
> 
> I also hoped you liked the new worlds I introduced. The only people who are not from worlds created by me, are Henry and Gansey. Gansey is from Naboo, obviously not a made up planet and Gatalenta, Henry's homeworld, is also not made up, but I'd say is fairly new to the canon of Star Wars. Fun fact: Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo from this most recent movie (the woman with the purple hair) is from Gatalenta! 
> 
> Now, I did still shroud some mystery of some of our favorite characters from you, and yes, I did it on purpose. Can't have all my cards reveiled at once, can I? 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are always appreciated by me. They also seriously make my entire day, and help me write stuff faster for you all to enjoy and read! Thanks again!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year to all! Let's hope that 2018 is good to all of us. Now, this story is getting updated fast because I am currently on my wonderful 6-week winter break from school which gives me a ton of free time. Once college starts up, I wouldn't expect updates as frequently. 
> 
> But all the feedback and comments make my heart soar. I seriously am so thankful for all of them, they mean the entire world to me. And I do hope they continue. 
> 
> This chapter has some dark themes in it. It's a history of Adam's planet, and it's not pretty. I tried to explain it the best I could, I hope it's alright. Of course, I can/will edit if need be. 
> 
> This wasn't beta'd or edited, so all mistakes are mine. Enjoy!

The moon of Kaan, just like the planet it orbits, was nothing particularly special. The only thing it had was that it was the largest moon, the original, and the only one that can host life for humans and near-humans without them choking to death on noxious gas without the proper gear. 

It was also a port moon. Kaan and Kaansala had a weird dynamic relationship. Kaan was the largest moon, but it was also the furthest from the planet making it not so large compared to the others when spotted in the sky. Kaansala has a breathable atmosphere, which is why humans came and were able to survive without being native to the planet. But it was also layered with more on top, which often times messes around with the comlinks and wiring system of ships. This, in turn, makes a ship coming off world with exports from the agricultural world, stop and recharge their systems on the port moon. And because doing that takes a while, many crews find themselves in one of the many cantinas or brothels that had been set up. It was all strategic.  

Kaansala was not a rich world. It was an agricultural world, renown for being able to produce even the toughest of crops. But there was also a hierarchy. One that hadn’t been there always, but had been there for so long no one remembered a time when it didn’t exist. 

Once upon a time, humans were out exploring the galaxy. A group of them discovered this new world and landed on it. They found the natives living there were strikingly similar looking to humans. There were no outwardly differences between the two, except for the luminescent eyes that appeared in dim and dark lighting allowing them to be able to see well in the dark, and the strength they had that humans did not.

They called themselves the Kaansali. And they taught the human explorers how to cultivate crops in the rich and fertile soil that was provided. But the humans spoke Basic, and the Kaansali did not. But they were fast learners. Kaansala was also discovered to be a good place for the Force to manifest. There was a group of devoted Kaansali who worshiped the Force and made sure the balance was there. Because of that, the Jedi soon came and built a temple and special relationship with the Kaansali acolytes. That relationship lasted eons, with good fortune. But when the Jedi went extinct, the Empire went after the acolytes and killed them all as well. 

Soon, more humans started to arrive on the planet. Relationships between the humans and Kaansali soured. The humans started to turn a profit on the crops being cultivated and hoarded the money among themselves, creating a difficult wealth gap between the two. The humans took advantage of the Kaansali hospitality, night vision, and strength, making them work for the humans, to get paid little money in return. 

And then it became the way of life for both. The humans remained wealthy, and turned profits while the Kaansali remained poor, working hard for a better life most would never see. The resentment of the Kaansali stays with each generation, hoping one day for a power shift to gain back the dignity they once had. 

* * *

Adam had only been on Kaan a few times while he still lived on Kaansala. It wasn’t really anything much. It was seedy, and not meant for young people. Not that that stopped anyone from sending Adam and other young Kaansali to the moon for various errands.

The place was shanty, the buildings not more than a few meters tall, and made from scraps. The streets were narrow and didn’t allow for any hoverships or any other spaceship to fly down. It was purely pedestrians and various street vendors trying to make a quick credit. 

The crew of the Camaro Pig had landed on the hangar just outside the port, where everyone else goes. Just like Sahani, there was little Imperial presence here. Just the flash of the occasional ivory armor of stormtroopers patrolling the streets. 

They walked down the streets, and because they are so narrow, they had to walk two across. Adam looked at the various colors and clothes that made up covers from the hot sun. He felt a pang go through his chest when he saw a little Kaansali boy, sitting cross-legged with various fruits in baskets surrounding him. Signs were both in Basic and Kaansa, with prices that were jacked up. His red hair was matted and greasy, his face covered in grime and dirt. His clothes were rags. The boy couldn’t be older than ten years old. Adam looked at the boy and saw himself, in the same position. 

He dug his hand into the pocket of his coveralls he still wore. In the hasty escape, he wasn’t able to bring anything of his along. He needed to save the little money he had to buy new clothes and necessities. Adam had always been rational about money. But he found some credits in his pocket. He broke away from the crew, who immediately turned around to look at what he was doing. Adam bent down and sat cross-legged across from the boy. It was a show of respect. 

The boy looked frightened. “Who do you work for?” Adam asked in Kaansa. 

He looked surprised. Not many people knew Kaansa, but it was the language of the Kaansali. It allowed the boy to make the connection that Adam knew. He was like him. 

“Chicga,” he responded. 

Chicga was one of the major human families on Kaansala. They had a monopoly on fruits grown in the world. Adam nodded his head. He hadn't worked for that family, but he knew others who did. He gave the boy a small smile. 

“What is your name?” 

“Simeon,” he said. His voice was low, and Adam had to strain to hear it. 

“Simeon, I’m going to buy some starapple from you. I’m going to give you the credits, but you take it for yourself alright?” Adam said. 

The boy’s green eyes widened. Adam gave over the credits from his pocket into the boy’s dirty hand and closed it gently holding it in his own. The boy looked up, with awe drawn across his face. “If you work hard, you don’t have to be condemned to this life. I promise,” he whispered. 

Adam let go and grabbed a couple of pieces of starapple before standing up. He gave a piece to Simeon who hesitantly took it. “For you.”  

He popped some into his mouth, savoring the sweet taste of the fruit. Fruit was a luxury and delicacy to Adam growing up. He walked back over to the crew who all looked stunned. Henry blinked. 

“What just happened?” he wondered out loud. 

Adam shrugged his shoulders. “I bought some starapple from that kid vendor. I’m hungry.” 

They were all getting jostled around by the people trying to walk. Some choice curses were thrown at them. Gansey opened his mouth, his eyebrows pinched and eyes narrowed. 

“I have a lot of questions, but we should find a more suitable place to talk.” 

They all made their way into one of the many cantinas on the moon. It was very dim, and loud. Holos of various sporting events were being floated around, groups of people were either talking hushedly or booming depending on what business was being worked out. Various alcoholic beverages were being passed around to patrons. It was a typical cantina atmosphere. 

If Adam had been human, like he claimed he was, he would’ve had a hard time seeing anything inside. But because he was not, in fact, human, but Kaansali, his eyes were able to see perfectly like it was daylight. 

He led them to the back where a booth was open for all of them to fit into. He sat in first, followed by everyone else. Ronan looked around the place with an arched eyebrow. Gansey and Henry seemed to find the place distasteful but tried to hide it. Blue didn’t seem to care, and neither did Noah. 

Adam hated loud places. He couldn’t hear out of his left ear, due to a particularly violent attack from his father when he was sixteen. It had been a long time since then, but sometimes Adam couldn’t adjust to the environment well. He was going to have a hard time hearing anything in this place. 

Gansey leaned forward on the table. Adam hated that he could see him clearly. He wished he didn’t have the Kaansali eyesight. 

“Care to explain yourself, Adam?” he asked cordially, but Adam could sense the command in his tone. 

He had only met these people hours ago it seemed. Time was different when traveling to different systems though, so he really had no idea. No matter though, he hated that his cover was blown so fast. Why did they have to go to Kaan? There are literally thousands of other systems they could have jumped to. Why did Adam have to help that boy who reminded him so much of his younger self? He could’ve just kept to himself and no one would’ve known any better. But then he’d feel like he betrayed his own kind, a child, who didn’t know any better. Not all Kaansali were like his atrocious and abusive parents. He hated them for making him feel ashamed to be Kaansali. They were the kind that exceeded the stereotypes placed on them. He hated the Humansali who took over his planet and reaped all the benefits for themselves. 

He hates that no one seems to give a shit about them and the struggles they have gone through for eons. He hated that the senators that represented Kaansala in the old Galactic Senate were always Humansali, and turned a blind eye to their own misdoings and acted like a great injustice wasn’t done on the planet they represented. And he hates that nothing has changed at all.  

Adam seemed to hate a lot of things about his past. He wishes he didn’t, but he did. 

He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. “What do you want me to explain?” 

“Why you lied to all of us? You obviously know this place. How do you?” Gansey continued frustration and indignity in his voice. 

Adam opened his eyes and looked at all of them. They all looked disappointed in Adam. Like they had any right to feel that way. They didn’t know who Adam was, and where he came from and how he clawed and dragged his way out of his poverty-stricken world to make a better life for himself. He huffed. 

“You don’t get to look at me like that,” was all he said. 

“Like what?” Blue asked. 

Adam gestured to all of them with his hand. He shook his head. “Like I’m the worst kind of person for lying about myself. Like you all haven’t done that before, please.” 

“But if you lied to us about this, how do you know you didn’t lie to us about everything else?” Noah asked. He looked the most sincere, his gray eyes wide and eyebrows pinched together. 

“My name is Adam Parrish. And yes, I did work for the Empire. And I did graduate from the Royal Imperial Academy the top of my class in engineering. That is all true. Believe me or not, but it’s the truth. And so what, if I lied about where I was from. I did live on Coruscant for a brief time. And I considered that place to be the new starting point of my life. I wanted to get rid of everything from before then, and for the past ten years, that’s what I’ve done.” 

“But why did you want to erase your past?” Henry said. 

“Because it is nothing to be proud of. I’m not the son of wealthy politicians or live on the beautiful world of Gatalenta or Oracelpha. I am the son of nobodies, from a planet in the outer-rim that means nothing to the galaxy except for the crops we export. I wanted to make a name for myself, prove myself worthy of being something bigger than what I was told I would never amount to be. So when that day came and I was able to, nothing else mattered,” he ranted. 

Adam wasn’t even sure why he was telling these people this. He never shared anything like this with others before. But for some reason, he wanted to prove he was worthy to be on the crew with them. All of them were silent. 

“What are you trying to say, Parrish?” Ronan said. 

Adam turned towards him. Ronan hadn’t said anything nice the entire time they were on Kaan, except poking fun at the dirtiness and grime of the port. Adam almost wanted to say he was interested in the conversation. 

Adam sighed. “I’m not from Coruscant. I’m from Kaansala. I’m not human, but Kaansali. It was why I was able to dent your ship when I hit it by accident, and why my eyes are glowing in the dark. The language I spoke to the boy on the street was Kaansa, the creole of my people. I’ve been on Kaan before, because I was a vendor like he was, working for an obscenely rich Humansali family. I was born dirt poor and scavenged enough credits to book it off to Coruscant and apply for the Academy when I was sixteen, which was my only shot at greatness. And I swore I would never come back to this place.” 

“I need a fucking drink,” Ronan said breaking the silence. He waved down a server droid and ordered something that Adam knew to be strong. A minute later it came and he took a large swig of the red liquid. 

“I swore to myself that day. But, I’m somehow back again. And I can lead you all to the Jedi Temple you’re looking for.” 

Gansey immediately perked up. “You know where it is?” 

Adam nodded his head. “It’s in a forest, right outside the capital city of Ka’anna. We should get going soon. I hate this place.” 

“Yes, it is rather skeevy,” Gansey agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked it! I feel like Adam's backstory is a little rushed, but it came out with the flow of the story. And I know, the gangesy is off to a really rough start, but it's going to get ugly before it gets better. Not everyone is best friends from the beginning. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are always appreciated by me. They help me continue on for you all! Thanks again for all the support!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! This chapter is pretty long and it took a while to get there. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! 
> 
> Not beta'd or edited, so all mistakes are mine.

The south side of Ka’anna City was very similar to the port on Kaan. It had the same setup. Lots of shanty looking buildings made of scraps and low to the ground. The streets were narrow, but wide enough for small cruisers not made for space to travel through. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the setup of Ka’anna City; like the people in charge of it decided they wanted to create a labyrinth instead of a functional grid like many other capital cities on other worlds. 

It was loud, it was crowded, and it was very hot. And with the combination of those three, Adam was not enjoying being back on his homeworld one bit. He had demanded that the crew stop so he could buy a change of clothes more suitable to the weather, and so he wasn’t mistaken for the former Imperial he was. 

He haggled viciously with a vendor for some light pants, and for a scarf to cover his face with. The shirt he was wearing was fine, it wasn’t anything suspicious; just off-white, grimy and had short sleeves. He would blend in perfectly. He ended up getting the stuff for half the going price. Adam was a little ashamed at how seamlessly he fell back into place in the bustling city of Ka’anna. But he did resist the urge to fall back into speaking Kaansa, and spoke in Basic instead, so he gave himself a pat on the back for that. 

Adam wrapped the scarf artfully around his face and over his head so only his nose and eyes were uncovered. He knotted it tightly so it would stay through the rough movements of the city. 

“Why do you have that stupid scarf around your face?” Ronan asked, “Afraid of ruining your pores in this dry air?” 

“Fuck off asshole, it’s so no one will recognize me,” Adam bit back. “Let’s get going.” 

He heard Ronan grunt and turned around to glare at the tall man. “What are the odds of that happening, Imperial?” 

Adam grit his teeth together and ignored the jab. “I’d rather not find out.” 

Adam didn’t wait for another comeback from Ronan. He started to push and wade his way through the thick throngs of people that filled the streets of Ka’anna City. He could barely hear his thoughts with the loud noises, and a dizzy spell was starting to come down to him. 

_ Not now, _ he viciously thought to himself. He could not have problems now, not in front of a crowd. That would only bring attention to him, and with that attention could come unwanted visitors and ghosts from his past. Or stormtroopers who have been alerted that a low ranking lieutenant has deserted. But that was a vain thought; low ranks deserted every day. Adam could easily be replaced. 

It didn’t matter though, soon enough Adam seemed to break through the crowds of the southside, and emerged into the upper side, which may as well have been a different city altogether. Unlike where they had just been, the buildings were sleek, shiny, and modern; the streets were wide and clean with no dirt in sight. Not as many people congregated, it was open. 

This was where the Humansali lived. 

And there was a checkpoint. Kaansala was a segregated planet, making sure the Humansali and the Kaansali interacted as little as possible. Kaansali were able to cross the intracity borders if they were sent by a Humansali, or even a human from off-world to run messages or errands that needed to be in the upper side. Adam was never that lucky. And he felt stupid for thinking they’d be able to get through. But it was the fastest option; the forest was just on the other side of the upper side. It was easier to try and go through than go around. 

“Damn it,” Adam muttered to himself as he looked at the border. There were signs that said in bold letters: No Kaansali; Humansali Only; Be Prepared for Identification Check. And it was all written in Kaansa to remind the Kaansali that they were not allowed. Humansali did not need to acknowledge the signs, they knew their place. 

“What do those signs say?” Gansey asked. Adam turned to see the man’s eyebrows pinched together and rubbing his thumb along his lower lip. 

“It means that I can’t go through. And it’s the fastest way to the forest,” he sighed. 

All of them looked confused still. Adam was questioning their intelligence at every turn it seemed. He crossed his arms over his chest before undoing it and pointing at the barbed wire boundary. 

“The city is segregated. The guards will be checking for identification when you walk up. My identification will say my species on it, which is Kaansali, yes, I didn’t lie on my Imperial papers because even I’m not that dumb. Unless you are a Kaansali errand boy or girl for a Humansali doing business in this area, you’re not getting in,” he explained. 

“Oh.” 

“Gansey, what are you thinking?” Blue questioned with her eyebrows raised. 

They all turned to him. He seemed to be in deep thought, looking over at the border. Adam had to wonder what he was planning too. 

“I think I may have an idea.” 

 

* * *

 

Adam was not very fond of this idea. But it was better than anything he could’ve thought of.

Gansey had decided he was going to put the weight of his family name into the fray, and that he was visiting, doing a quick little vacation time and research about various planets in the outer-rim for his sister, Helen, and mother on Coruscant. 

Adam was the Kaansali he hired to escort him around the bustle of the capital city, and as a translator when needed. Blue was his romantic partner, which wasn’t a lie, who was there to help him interact with the different peoples of Kaansala due to her experience in anthropology. 

Henry would stay the same role, a technician of the ship they used to travel, but also just around to travel leisurely with the crew. He was also dressed finely enough that the Humansali probably won’t even ask for his ID, he looked like one of them. 

Ronan was Gansey’s bodyguard, plain and simple. He looked rough enough for the part, and he was intimidatingly tall, well taller than any normal human. With his menacing tattoo that was shown over his shoulders, and shaved head and scowl, they probably wouldn’t question him either. 

Noah, as Adam found out was also from a very wealthy family on his homeworld. Even though he looked the least human out of all of them, the prestige that would come from his name and identification and contacts would be a nice shoo-in for him too. 

They all walked up to the border together. The guards who often worked the border patrol were extended family members of the Humansali that came from off-world to get a good paying job. 

A guard in tan and beige camouflage halted them. He had protective glasses from the sun over his face and a tan beret on his head. He carried a big blaster in his hands. He marched up towards all of them. 

“Identifications,” he commanded. Adam looked over at Gansey to start talking. Gansey nodded and put on his best smile. 

Gansey pulled out his own identification card and handed it over to the guard. He put his blaster down to inspect it closely. He glanced at the identification and Gansey’s face. 

“Richard Gansey, of Naboo. Twenty-six years old. Human,” he pointed out. Gansey nodded his head in confirmation. 

“What brings you to Ka’anna City, Mr. Gansey?” 

Adam could see the way Gansey held himself. He was standing up straight, even if he wasn’t very tall. But even an idiot could see that his mannerisms have changed to adapt to the situation. He oozes confidence of someone who knew how to schmooze. It was amazing to witness. 

Gansey turned around and beckoned Adam to come up next to him. If it had been any other situation, Adam would’ve been offended. But he had to play the role of the submissive servant and was willing to fight back the pride that was itching to tell him off. 

The guard eyed him with suspicion. “Take that stupid scarf off, boy,” he gruffly demanded. It was a different tone than what he used with Gansey. Adam bit back a growl of anger but did what he was told anyway. 

Gansey put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, still wearing that perfect smile on his face. Adam looked at the ground. “This is an escort I found at the port looking for a job. He will stay with me so he can help me navigate my way around the city and as my personal translator. 

“I’ve been sent on a mission from my sister and mother, Senator Laura Gansey of Naboo, on Coruscant to document my travels on outer-rim planets so they can update archives and the Senate on the ins-and-outs of these territories often neglected by the core worlds.” 

The guard handed Gansey back his ID. “Well, we can find you a more,” he glanced distastefully at Adam, “qualified escort for you in this place.” 

A fire had started to form in Gansey’s eyes. “That will not be necessary. Adam here is perfect.” 

“Now as you can also see, I have a crew with me. There will be no problems with them as they will be with me, and since they are, they are also considered a part of this diplomatic mission from Senator Gansey.” 

The guard looked uneasy, but it was hard to deny Gansey much of anything. Adam was quickly coming to learn that about him. He curtly nodded and glanced over at Adam. 

“Keep your identification in sight,” he told Adam before walking away and allowing the border gates to open. 

“Thank you,” Gansey said before crossing over. 

Adam wrapped the scarf back around his head again. He wasn’t worried about anyone recognizing him this time around, but it did protect him from the intense heat. 

Even though he’d never stepped foot in this part of the city, Adam had looked at maps of Ka’anna City all his young life. He had these streets and layouts memorized deeply in his head. He led them through the pristine streets. 

The people walking these streets were men and women dressed ornately. The clothes they wore were made of the finest materials, and in bright colors, only the wealthy could afford. Many were looking at their personal holos, typing away while drinking expensive caff drinks Adam could only dream of affording. 

Many took notice of Gansey and Henry, who dressed like them, but it was more subdued. It didn’t matter, they still nodded their heads and smiled in acknowledgement when they walked by, like they were all part of some secret circle, while ignoring the rest of the them. Adam had become desensitized to this. 

“The architecture of these buildings really is stellar, I must say,” Gansey commented, “they should make the entire city like this.” 

“Gansey, we literally just went through a border patrol to get in here. Obviously the people who run this planet don’t want it that way,” Blue pointed out. 

Adam glanced back at her. She didn’t look impressed by this part of the city. She walked with her arms tightly crossed over her chest. She glanced up with a look of disdain. Adam thought she was the only voice of reason here. 

“Gosh, perhaps I can make a plea to my contacts. This city really could be a wonder if it has the right patron,” he continued on anyway. 

“Don’t bother,” Adam curtly said. It was a lost cause anyway. He continued to lead them out of the city. 

Soon the buildings diminished, and they were able to leave through another border patrol with ease. The paved roads stopped, and immediately turned into old dirt ones. It was worn and had various tracks from wheeled wagons, and transport animals. Golden waves of wheat covered both sides of the roads. And as they kept walking, orchards showed up. 

Adam spared a glance. He could see Kaansali workers harvesting golden mangos, and starapple. Using the special poles created to reach the highest branches of the thick trees. Others were picking up the fruit that fell on the floor and piling them into baskets. Those bruised ones would be sold for dirt cheap prices even the most poor Kaansali could afford. 

“How long do they work out in these fields?” Henry asked. 

Adam didn’t respond for a few moments. He didn’t harvest fruit when he lived on world. The large family he worked for, the Bullias, ran monopolies on fermenting alcohols. He worked harvesting grains in the fields mostly due to being a young man. The older Kaansali and the women worked in the breweries. And just like the discarded fruit, if a batch went bad it get sold to the families who made it that way. And it happened a lot. So his father bought a lot of it, which only brought pain to his family, and specifically him. Adam hated alcohol because of that. 

“Before dawn to after dusk. The Humansali take advantage of our night vision,” he finally said. 

“Those…hours seem inhumane,” Noah hesitantly chimed in. 

“It’s been like that for eons, and will probably stay that way for more,” Adam huffed out. 

“And they aren’t slaves are they?” Blue asked, she had a righteous tone in her voice. 

“No. Probably just one step above them. The Humansali-” he started, but was cut off. 

“You keep saying that term. What is a Humansali?” Ronan cut in. 

Adam rolled his eyes. “The distinction of humans who were born and raised on Kaansala. Humans from off-world are just called humans. As I was saying,” he bit glaring at Ronan, “the Humansali own almost every part of this planet. The Kaansali live on their land, and pay dues to the Humansali for having a place to live. We work for their monopolies for little wages, enough to keep us living but not enough to get us away.” 

“How’d you get away then?” Ronan asked. 

Adam threw his hands in the air and let out a frustrated groan. “I’m not telling you my entire life story.” 

That ended the conversation. Adam kept leading them to the forest in silence. 

By the time they made it, the sun was setting over the horizon. The forest was tall and green, unlike the rest of Kaansala which was dusty and tan. Even from the outskirts Adam could feel the energy pulsing through him. 

“Wow,” Noah sighed. Adam looked over and saw him close his eyes and inhale deeply. “This place as a strong energy.” 

Adam gulped. “This is sacred land. We have to tread carefully inside. We don’t want to disrupt the balance of energy.” 

Noah pursed his lips. “The energy is definitely not balanced. There is a dark presence in this forest.” 

“How the fuck do you know that?” Ronan demanded. Adam looked over to him, he looked a little put out by this. Adam wondered if he could sense it too. 

“I just can.” 

“Well, we made it this far! Let’s head in,” Gansey said. Adam nodded and lead the way inside. 

It was much darker inside the canopy of trees. But he was fine. Flashes of light came from flashlights ignited by Gansey and his crew. It hurt his sensitive eyes, so he just looked away.  

The trees swayed. Kaansala was not known for its wind, so it was weird to hear it coming in strong in the forest. The rustle of the leaves was like a symphony to Adam. He closed his eyes and breathed in the fresh scent of the forest. The energy pulsing under his feet. He could’ve sworn he had been here before. But no one but the acolytes and Jedi were allowed to step foot in here. It was risky doing so, especially with so many outsiders. 

But nothing bad had happened. So he followed the feeling in his hearts and continued to navigate the seemingly endless forest. Soon he stopped short, allowing for Ronan to ram into him. 

“Fuck, Parrish watch it,” he cursed. 

Adam didn’t acknowledge Ronan. He was busy looking at the Jedi Temple in front of him. He had never seen it before. But it was magnificent. It was large, bigger than Adam would’ve ever thought it to be. It seemed to be out of place in a forest like this, it soared into the canopy of trees, but the trees seemed to have made way for it to touch the sky which was visible. Adam could see two of the moons surrounded by stars. 

The architecture of the temple was ancient. Adam was looking and thinking of all the old techniques used to make this temple. It was made of stone, the kind found in the rare rock quarries of northern Kaansala. It blended in with the night sky, but Adam could imagine it stands out in daylight. It was sculpted and carved ornately. The entrance was blocked by a monolith. On either side were large statues of what Adam could only believe were Jedi. Both were broken, the one of the left was missing it’s head, which laid crumbled on the ground, and the other was simply missing large chunks making it look grotesque. Both had their arms outstretched in different positions with a lightsaber.

“This is truly prodigious,” Gansey breathed. Their lights were shining on the temple. 

Adam felt something call him. There were no words, but he could hear whispers of wind in his deaf ear. Something that never happened to him. He walked forward in a trance. 

“Adam! What are you doing?” he heard Blue call. He ignored it, and kept going forward. 

As he got closer he found himself more stupefied by the pure beauty and magnificence of this place. It was no wonder not everyone could come. It was sacred and had been untainted for eons. No ordinary person would be able to handle the energy that surrounded the walls of this place. 

He stood in front of the monolith. Up this close he could see the engravings. He didn’t fully know what it meant. But he could see people carved in, they were dressed in robes and holding ancient symbols. They must be the acolytes. There were others waving around what had to be lightsabers. _The Jedi_. 

On it were words of some kind. They looked familiar to Adam. But they were not Kaansa. These were more ancient. He narrowed his eyes, closed them and put his palm against the stone. Energy flowed through him, and images flashed in his mind. He couldn’t make sense of any of them. But a voice whispered into his head. Then it dispelled him, knocking him away from the stone and onto his back. 

The energy left him, but Adam felt more energized then he had in his entire life. He felt like his entire body was buzzing. He was staring at the moons of Kaansala, enjoying the view.

“Adam! Adam! Can you hear me?” Gansey’s voice said, but it was like hearing it underwater. 

He sat up slowly. Adam couldn’t stop looking at the monolith. It was like it had taken him under its spell. He could feel the crew of the Camaro Pig touching him, shaking him. But it didn’t matter. 

“What the hell happened just now?” Blue’s voice cried incuriously. 

“Parrish! Fucking hell, what the fuck did this place do to him? Fry his fucking brain?” Ronan barked.  

“He’s gone catatonic! Oh good Mothers of Gatalenta!” Henry cried out. 

Adam blinked slowly. “The only way to get in is with a Jedi,” he muttered. 

“What? Adam, repeat that?” Gansey pleaded. 

He was silent for a minute. Still looking at the beautiful engravings and the words in an ancient language long lost to time.

“A jedi. We need one to get in,” he whispered. 

Gansey dropped his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, we don’t have one.” 

“We can’t just blow the lid off this place?” Ronan suggested. 

Adam finally turned to look at the two of them. Gansey was giving Ronan a sort of look. Adam didn’t know what it was. 

“You of all people should know better, Ronan. No, we cannot just ‘blow the lid’ off an ancient temple that still seems to have enough energy to throw a person twenty feet back,” Gansey bit back condescendingly. 

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” 

Gansey looked at the temple with his flashlight. “What a shame we can’t get in.” 

“Yes, we can,” Noah said. Adam slowly turned his attention. He felt numb. 

“How so, idiot? We don’t have a Jedi handy with us,” Ronan said. 

Noah looked nervous. Adam tilted his head to the side. Noah let out a large sigh, looked at the temple like it caused him pain. 

“Yes, we do," he muttered. 

"I was a Jedi,” he confessed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't boo me for the cliffhanger! This plot point has been a long time coming, and it's been kept a secret until now. I really enjoyed writing about the Jedi Temple. Definitely, the best part for me to write this chapter. The other parts were eh. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome and encouraged. Thank you all so much for the support!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet! Just over 5k words! 
> 
> So some warnings, Robert Parrish appears in this chapter. And with him comes mentions of some abuse, but I promise there are no extreme graphics. But just a warning so if anyone feels uncomfortable they can skip over.
> 
> I love but also hate this chapter. It has varying point of views, which is a new one for this chapter. And it was fun to explore their characters, but I also don't know how I did with writing their point of views. 
> 
> So I hope you all enjoy it! As always, not beta'd or edited so all mistakes are mine.

Adam didn’t think he heard right. He still felt disoriented from the experience with the Jedi Temple. He was staring at Noah who still was looking down at the ground. His blue skin and white hair were incandescent under the moonlight. 

“What did you say?” Adam finally asked in a daze. It must’ve been his lack of hearing. 

Noah glanced up at Adam taking his eyes off the ground. Adam could see that there were glazing over with unshed tears. He ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the roots before letting both arms hang limply at his side. 

“I was a Jedi,” he repeated. 

Adam saw Gansey stride up beside him towards Noah. He had a hurt look on his face. His eyebrows were pinched together and his mouth was gaping a little. He then went into his thinking mode, rubbing a thumb over his lip. 

“If you were a Jedi, how are you even alive then?” Gansey inquired. 

Adam winced. It was an insensitive question to ask, even if it was the one they were all thinking. Noah raised his arms and crossed them tightly over his chest like he was protecting himself. He shook his head and started to make his way over to the temple. 

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I can get this temple opened,” Noah said, his voice gaining an edge to it. 

Blue came over and offered a hand out to Adam. He was feeling better than he had been a few moments ago. He reached up and pulled himself off the ground. For a second the ground seemed to tilt around him, making Adam lose his balance before he regained it. 

“I’m okay,” he insisted when he saw Blue’s worried face. She pursed her lips but didn’t refute him. 

They all followed Noah back to the monolith. Adam once again felt drawn to the drawings of the acolytes and the Jedi. It was enticing him to come in, but he couldn’t. He heard the whispers in his ears in languages he didn’t understand. 

“What are you going to do, Noah?” Blue asked. 

Noah was slumped. His head was bowed down. They were all watching him carefully to see what he was going to do next. Suddenly he just reached his arm out and put his hand on the stone. His long fingers were splayed out. Adam felt his eyebrows raise. 

Noah didn’t say anything. But Adam watched as the carvings started to glow on the stone. He sucked in a breath of amazement. The monolith started to vibrate and shake until it was lifting itself off the ground. Adam had never seen anything like it in his entire life. It defies the laws of science and everything he’d ever studied. Adam was frozen. 

“Get inside,” Noah commanded in a strained voice. 

Gansey was the first to break out of his daze. He nodded his head and walked into the cavern that laid behind the stone. Blue followed, then Ronan and Adam and finally Noah. When Noah came in, the stone clashed to the ground again leaving them inside. 

Even with Adam’s good night vision, he could barely see his hands. It was completely pitch dark inside. Then the room became illuminated. Adam watched as all around torches lit up as if by magic. Real life fire was sparkling and crackling around them. 

“This is truly phenomenal,” Gansey breathed out. 

Adam watched Gansey walk the perimeter of the circular room. He brushed his fingers against the walls that were ornate and ancient. More carvings were in the place. Adam walked towards them. 

He could see that they were once colored vibrantly. Reds and blues were faded out, while others had bleached away completely leaving just the indents of carvings in gray stone. They were magnificent. 

“I wonder what they mean,” Blue said. 

Adam kept looking around, analyzing what they all showed. “I think it’s a bunch of stories being told. The history between the acolytes and Jedi.” 

“How do you know that?” Ronan said. He’d been quiet the entire time until now. 

Adam shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It just seems right.” 

The whispers in Adam’s ears became loud suddenly. He closed his eyes tight and winced. He couldn’t understand what was being said, but he couldn’t hear the rest of his friends anymore. 

When he opened his eyes, he was alone. He was in a completely different place. Adam whipped around looking for the people he had come with. 

“Guys?” He called out, “where did you all go?” he asked. 

But he got no response. It wasn’t pitch black like the other atrium had been. He could see fine. Adam looked up and saw there was an oculus in the ceiling allowing moonlight to come in. He could see that it was Kaan IV hovering over the sky. 

There were more carvings of drawings depicting the Jedi. But along with it were symbols he did not recognize. They must’ve been insignias of some sort because they showed up a lot. The same ancient language was also carved in with the pictures. He wished he could read it. The whispers came again. 

Adam fell to his knees. He placed his forehead into the dirt, hunched over. It felt like a weight was placed on him suddenly. His breathing got heavy, and soon the whispers turned into a voice that haunted Adam. 

“The fuck are you doing on the floor like that? Get up,” a gruff voice demanded. 

Adam immediately lifted his head off the ground and sat up. In front of him, clear as day was his father. 

He was standing over Adam, imposingly tall. He looked exactly as Adam remembered. His unshaved face, his scruffy brown hair that was littered with grays. His brown eyes bloodshot, his face splotchy. His mouth with a permanent sneer. 

Adam was paralyzed. 

“How are you here?” he breathed out. 

His father took a step forward making Adam scramble back. He felt like a little kid again. His body ached with the phantom pains that came with his father. A bottle of alcohol materialized in his father’s hand as he took a sloppy swig of it. He let out a guttural cough when he finished. 

“Didn't Cha hear me, boy? I said, _GET._ _UP_!” he bellowed. Then he threw the beer bottle that soared past Adam’s head with a swish before shattering somewhere behind him. Adam didn’t see because he had closed his eyes in fear. 

He felt his father’s rough and calloused hand grab him by the shirt and yank him up. Adam instinctively lifted his arms to cover his face. Then he shoved him back. Adam’s eyes snapped open. 

Adam was taller than his father, but he didn’t carry the same presence and take up as much room as his father did. He wasn’t bulky like he was. Somehow another bottle was in his hand and he kept drinking. 

“Thought you’d be able to get away from me did ya? Well seems like you came crawling back home anyway. I always told you, you’d amount to nothin’. Not even the Empire values you,” he sneered. 

The words stung like they always did. But then he realized that there would be no way his father would ever know that. He stared at his father who was still glowering at him, taking more sips of whatever booze was in his hand. 

“There is no way you’d know about that,” he said back. 

Adam watched as his father’s fists tightened, the knuckles turning white. “You talkin’ back to me boy?” 

Adam had escaped his father’s death grip years ago. He shouldn’t be able to have this hold on him anymore. He realized that this was just some sort of fucked up hallucination. He wasn’t real. This wasn’t his father. 

Whispers came into his ears as he came to those thoughts. He still couldn’t understand what they meant, but he could feel they were positive. He was on the right track. Adam took a step forward. His father eyed him with wariness. 

“You aren’t real. And you’re wrong. I did amount to something. I got off this hellhole and dragged myself through the Royal Academy. And sure it wasn’t the dream job I got offered, but it was still more then what you’d amount to. Working for Humansali who treat you like shit, and to die on this dust planet. So fuck you. You have no hold on me no longer!” He ranted. By the time he finished he screamed. 

He heard his father bellow in rage, before dissipating into dust before his eyes leaving Adam all alone. 

Adam fell to his knees again. This time from exhaustion. But he had never felt so free in his life. It was like the ball and chain that was his father had finally relinquished their hold on him forever. 

 

* * *

 

Noah realized too late what the temple was doing to all of his friends. Jedi Temples are always tricky and often can become a labyrinth of mental and physical challenges. He wasn’t sure if anyone else heard the whispers of the Force in their ears, but it took Noah too long to figure it out himself and to tell his friends.

Now they would have to do it on their own. He had hope that they were all strong enough to resist the horrors it might bring to them. He wasn’t very sure about himself. The whispers became screams in his head, making him clutch his ears and close his eyes. 

When they disappeared he opened his eyes to find himself alone. Torches were lined against the wall, and a single opening in the wall let some natural light in. Noah found it peculiar but walked over to it anyway. Outside was the Jedi courtyard on Coruscant. He saw the ghosts of Jedi he knew milling around, practicing their lightsaber skills, or meditating. Noah scrambled back in horror and surprise. 

“That’s not possible,” he whispered to himself. He breathed out a shaky breath and clutched his head again. 

“My padawan, you always carried so much in your heart,” a soft voice came. 

Noah turned around. He would know that voice in any part of the galaxy. Standing before him was his old master. She looked alive when Noah knew that she was not. He fell to his knees in front of her. 

“Master Walla,” he breathed out, “how are you here?” 

She simply sat down in front of him. Her blue skin and yellow markings bright in even the dim lighting of the place. Her lavender hair was just as ornately put up in a chignon as he remembered it always being. His Pantoran master had always been soft-spoken. She gently reached out a hand and caressed his cheek. Her hand was cold, causing Noah to shiver. 

“When you walk into a Jedi Temple, the Force is easier to manifest,” she explained. “Now what has your heart so heavy?” 

Noah shook his head. He couldn’t look into her golden eyes. A tear fell out and cut across his cheek. “You know what.” 

“I do. But it would be easier for you if you said it out loud.” 

He shook his head again but looked up. More tears came out from his eyes. She looked exactly the same. “It’s too painful.” 

His chest felt tight with all the horrible memories. Flashes of battles came into his head, on worlds across the galaxy. The squadron he commanded falling one by one by blaster fire. Padawans in his clan, his friends, dying on the battlefield in the Clone Wars. His friends, being brutally murdered by the clones who had turned on them. His master dying while he fled like a coward. The rip in the Force he felt that horrid day. 

“That is why it is so important to let it out,” she insisted. 

It was silent for a few minutes. Finally, he let it out. “I deserted you and my friends like a coward. I used my ability to blend in to escape while you were all brutally murdered by those clones. I should’ve died with you. I failed you,” he gasped. 

Now it was Master Walla’s turn to shake her head. She even had a small smile on her face. Her gold eyes pieced into Noah’s. 

“If that is what you think, Noah, then it is I who failed you. You are not the only Jedi who escaped that day. And I am thankful that you did because the Jedi aren’t truly extinct then. It is a master’s job to protect the padawan and that is exactly what I did. It was worth my life to save you.” 

She leaned forward and grasped his head and leaned her against his. He closed his eyes, he could practically feel her breathing. 

“I am sorry you must hide your past. But never forget it. Release your anguish and guilt. It is what is chaining you down. Set yourself free, my padawan, and you find your balance again. Now, let’s meditate like we used to do in the courtyard.” 

She released him and crossed her legs. Noah followed pursuit. She gave him a smile before closing her eyes. Noah did the same finding himself lighter than he had felt in years. It felt like the old times. 

“This is not the last time you will see me, Noah,” she promised.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck is happening,” Ronan demanded.

He was angry at this place. Parrish and Noah had disappeared into thin air suddenly, leaving just him, Blue, Henry and Gansey alone in a foreign temple that seemed to hold a malicious energy against them.

“I’m not sure, but it seems that the temple is breaking us up,” Gansey added. 

Ronan crossed his arms and glared at Gansey. “No shit, but why? We shouldn’t have come here in the first place!” 

Blue came in between the two of them. “Shut the fuck up, both of you.” 

Ronan sneered at her in response, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. She was used to it by now he guessed. Henry had closed his eyes and taken a deep breath. 

“I feel like this place is feeding off the bad vibes we’re producing. We need to just relax and try to keep a calm mind.” 

The thing was, Ronan didn’t know how to do that. He ran hot all the time. “No one needs your stupid Gatalantan meditation bullshit. We don’t have Noah who was our ticket out of this place or Parrish who we can’t leave behind.” 

“Thought you didn’t like him?” Henry asked, blatantly ignoring Ronan’s jab of his homeworld. 

Ronan sneered in defense. “Just because of that doesn’t mean I’ll leave him behind. Fuck I’m not heartless.” 

“Could’ve fooled me,” Henry rebutted.

Ronan started after Henry, but Gansey came in between and pushed him away. “Gentlemen! Please!” 

He turned around. Ronan wanted to kick something or blow an Imperial ship up. Anything but feel helpless stuck in a Jedi temple that is kidnapping all his friends. He walked over to one of the walls with the carvings and slammed his fist into it. Immediately his knuckles split and blood came out but he didn’t care. It felt good the pain. He closed his eyes and growled before hitting it again. 

When he turned around, he was alone. His friends were gone. 

“For fuck’s sake!” he screamed. 

He was simmering with anger. He stalked around gnawing on his leather bracelets around his wrist. Curses were flying out of his mouth faster than he could think. 

“Is that what you kiss your mother with?” a deep voice said. 

Immediately Ronan turned around. In front of him was his worst nightmare. Standing there was his father. 

The smell of the rolling hills of Somna Majia wafted over him. He could hear the waves of the ocean crashing against the moors of his home. Ronan was overcome by it suddenly. 

“You bastard,” Ronan growled. 

Niall Lynch didn’t seem bothered by Ronan’s animosity. He simply walked up to him with the swagger he always remembered his father having. His curly hair trimmed nicely, but dressing like a maverick. He had his arms behind his back as he looked at Ronan. 

“Force almighty, I did not raise you to be like this,” was all he said. “You look like a criminal.” 

Ronan turned around to face him. The same piercing light blue eyes all Lynch brothers possessed. Niall was smirking with his eyebrow quirked up. “I am a criminal. Following in your footsteps it seems.” 

Niall tsked Ronan and shook his head. “Oh my boy, you know nothing. I bet it was Declan who told you all that shit. Always had it out for me that one.” 

“Declan didn’t need to tell me anything. Being brutally murdered by an enemy told me all that. And you brought mom down with you and shot the family name to shit yourself.” 

A fire in Niall’s eyes emerged then. Before Ronan’s eyes, his father’s head started to deform, blood came down his face where his head was bashed in. The red got into his father’s mouth staining his teeth and lips when he smiled. 

“You are a greywaren. It is time you stop running from that and own up to it. You are using your gifts on nothing!” he shouted. 

Ronan couldn’t take it. “I don’t want it! I don’t want to end up like you did!” 

“No matter what, you will! That’s what happens when you try to take on the Empire! One of these days your arrogance will kill you and all your friends!” Niall bellowed back. 

Ronan shook his head. He bared his teeth. “This is your fault anyway! You are the one who banned me from going back home, even if I wanted to be a greywaren. You’ve been dead for fifteen years, what do you know?” 

Niall’s face was still deformed. And it brought back horrible memories of when he found his body dead. He put his hands on Ronan’s shoulders. “Then fix it. I am giving you a chance to fix it.” 

“How do I do that? It’s a will,” Ronan refuted. 

Niall gave Ronan a knowing look and winked. “You know how to. Your gifts, Ronan. And who am I to stop you from going home? You’ve always been the rebellious child.” 

“Declan will never let me.” 

“Delcan is more than you think he is, son. Trust me. Continue on that quest of yours, but don’t do anything dumb like dying.” 

Ronan didn’t realize a tear was coming out of his eye. He quickly wiped it. He heard the sounds and smells of his home, and his father faded into the mist. 

“Fuck, that bastard,” Ronan muttered. 

 

* * *

“Ronan’s gone too? What the fuck!” Blue exclaimed throwing her hands in the air.

Henry nodded his head. “I think we accept the fact that we all shall perish in this Jedi temple,” he proclaimed.

“You two are being quite dramatic if I say so,” Gansey put in. 

Blue didn’t understand how he could be so calm in a situation like this. All of their friends were being picked off one by one by some unknown energy or force, leaving them who knows in what state. They could all be dead as far as Blue was concerned. And she was very concerned. She did not want to die here. 

“Yeah, I’m going to blink for a second and next thing you know, you’ll be gone too!” Blue said. 

To prove her point, she blinked. And much to her shock, she was alone. Her eyes widened and she turned around quickly. 

“Force Almighty! I didn’t mean it literally!” 

“Didn’t we teach you the dangers of being literal?” the familiar voice of her cousin Orla said. 

Blue turned around to see her tall cousin lounging on a long chair. She was in a bright orange two-piece swimsuit, with large circle glasses meant to protect the sun. She was popping grapes into her mouth. 

“How are you here?” Blue demanded. 

Orla let out a curt laugh and took a sip of a bright blue drink that was most likely alcoholic. She raised her glasses pushing her brown bangs out of her eyes and looked towards Blue. “I’m not actually here. I don’t even know where I am right now. But the Force called me to tell you something so I’m here. Not literally,” she ended with a large smile like she made a joke. 

“Where are you then?” 

“On the beaches of Goldencia. One of those admirers gave a few days to me as a gift, before I dumped him of course. So I was supposed to be relaxing, but now I’m here to teach you a lesson.” She scoffed and ate another grape. 

“What lesson is that?” 

Orla flapped her hand. “Oh, about how you need to get over your resentment on not being really Force-sensitive like the rest of our clan of ladies. Something like that.” 

Blue hadn’t seen her family in a while. Being busy on the run from Imperials and on a galaxy-wide scavenger hunt with her boyfriend and friends. But she had forgotten how annoying her cousin could be. And she felt the anger of the reminder that she was not like her family. She hadn’t harbored those feelings for a long time because it hadn’t mattered then. 

“I don’t feel resentment,” Blue grit out between clenched teeth. 

“Your energy would state otherwise.” Orla let out a sigh and finally sat up to fully face Blue. She stood up and walked over. She towered over Blue, but Blue was not very tall, to begin with. Orla put a hand around her shoulders. She could feel the energy like Orla was really there. It freaked Blue out a little bit.

“Blue, you know as well as I do that every woman Oracelph, which includes you and I all have a sort of gift with the Force. It may not be like mine or your mother’s of Calla’s, but you got one. You are a mirror.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” 

She had heard it a few times by her mother and everyone else who lived with her on Oracelpha. But she had never fully understood what it meant. Her family tended to talk in riddles and vagueness. Which did not help Blue. 

“Force, you are still so annoying. It means you amplify. You got friends who are really force-sensitive don’t you?” 

Orla raised a hand to stop Blue from interrupting. “Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Because you are around, you are amplifying the energy around this temple, which was high anyway. That is why our connection is so strong at the moment. Which is no slouchy gift, in my opinion anyway.”

She then walked back to her chair and took another sip of her drink. She lowered her glasses over her face. 

“So what does this mean?” Blue wondered. 

“Do I have to answer everything myself? You’re smarter than that Blue. Stop holding resentment about your gift, because you got one. Find balance, all that Force-Jedi mumbo-jumbo. Now if you excuse me, I need to get more suns. Visit soon, or your mother will lecture you! Say hi to Ronan for me.”  

Blue blinked and Orla was gone. “What the fuck.” 

 

* * *

 

“Okay I’ve accepted that we are all going to be kidnapped,” Henry said, he looked up, “just do it now! Get it over with!”

Henry looked down to see that his wish had come true. He was alone, Gansey gone from him. He nodded his head and breathed deeply. 

“Bring it to me. But make the death quick, please,” he pleaded to the darkness. 

He tried to not think of the dark memories that came with dark places like this. This is was it looked like when he was held hostage by those cartel criminals when he was a child. He had tried to train himself to get over the fear, and he had mostly succeeded but it still lingered sometimes. 

“Still afraid of the dark?” an accented voice said. 

Henry didn’t turn around. He knew who it was. It was the voice of one of his kidnappers. He hadn’t seen or heard of them in years. 

“What do you want?” he asked back. 

The laugh of the man was grating and it made Henry flinch but he turned around anyway. The man was blurry, his features indistinguishable. But it was his voice that Henry remembered. 

“I’m here to take you again. Seondeok has been acting up, and needs to be set straight.” 

Henry could feel his heart racing. Whispers started to fill his ears suddenly, but it was calming to hear. It drowned out the rushing of his blood. The man had a wolfish grin on his featureless face. He was shrouded in darkness. 

“Whatever my mother has gotten herself into, is none of my business any longer,” Henry said to stand up. 

Another figure emerged next to the first one, and then a third, all identical. Their shape was the same but still held the same featureless faces. Henry wasn’t sure if that made them more intimidating. They were all shades of his past. Coming back to haunt him. 

“Even if we had her?” one of the other men said. He thrust his arm forward and in front of him came his mother. 

Her hair was messily undone, and her face,, arms and ankles were bonded together with cuffs. Her elegant clothes were ripped and dirty. She looked up at him, blood dried on her scalp. Her brown eyes still held a fire Henry remembered her having. She was so unlike the Gatalenta tradition. It was some of the only similarities they had with each other. 

They looked at each other and his mother arched an eyebrow at him. She didn’t want him to save her. Henry shook his head and looked at the three figures. 

“You can’t hold her over me. I am not the child you kidnapped,” he said confidently. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

The shadow of his mother faded away. The three men growled in unison. “You should be!” the first one shouted. 

“I’ve seen worse things than you three petty crime lords. Stay in your side of the galaxy and I will with mine!” he declared. 

The three men shouted but vanished. Henry let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. The whispers in his ears was a comfort. 

 

* * *

 

Once Henry vanished as well, Gansey knew he was in trouble. Not that he didn’t expect to be alone. All his friends had gone somewhere possibly into the aether.

“This place is so peculiar indeed,” he said to himself. 

Then he heard the familiar sound of buzzing. He froze as he saw a single wasp fly onto his arm and crawl his way up. Gansey had not dealt with these poisonous and deadly insects in a long time. They were not on many worlds he visited, but were native on his homeworld of Naboo. 

It had been there that he had been stung to death by a nest of them, and miraculously brought back to life. A voice had spoken to him, talking about a Jedi Knight named Glendower from the Old Republic. The Force had brought him back to life. Which in turn started the journey of trying to discover all he could about the Jedi and the Force and the search for the lost Jedi Knight. 

Now the very reason for his death was crawling up his arm. He tried to remember the tactics that Henry had taught him to get over the panic attacks induced by nightmares of that event. But his mind was blank. 

“Richard,” a voice whispered. It was the same voice that had spoken to him when he had been brought to life. 

Balls of light fluttered in front of him. They had no distinct shape to them but they were beautiful. “Remember all you have done,” the orbs whispered. He could feel the wind blowing bast his ears, the familiar scents of the trees on Naboo. What were these orbs he couldn’t help but wonder. 

The orbs came to Gansey and went through his head. Images and memories of joy came. Of the many jokes shared on the adventures on the Camaro Pig with his best friends, being with his sister Helen during their childhoods. 

Memories of confusion. Staying up late at night for so many years wondering why it was him that was chosen to be born again in all the beings of the universe? Why was it fair that it was him and not someone else? Why did he deserve this second chance? 

Memories of sadness. Hearing all the stories of the Jedi being annihilated during the rise of the Empire, some not being older than himself at the time, children. Looking at all the poor people in the galaxy working for a living where he was born into nobility. Seeing the darkness in the galaxy and the Empire. When his best mentor, his first companion on this search, Malory died. 

Memories of anger. All the fights he gotten in with his parents about his pursuits. How they thought they were still childish and nothing more than a fool’s errand. The fights with Ronan. When he thought he had a lead but it ended up being a trick for money, or a dead end.

Then he felt serenity. 

“Find the balance inside yourself. Do not let fear overtake you,” the whispers said. 

Gansey looked at the wasp. “Leave,” he commanded. The insect vanished into mist. 

“You were chosen because of the Force. All is as the Force wields. Doubt doesn’t belong in you. Soon you will find the answers you seek in the places you least expect.” 

The orbs then vanished. Gansey closed his eyes. And when he opened them, all his friends were back. They were all back in the same place they started.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed it! You now know where Ronan is from! And have some history with him. His was definitely one of the more difficult ones to write. I also debated whether I should put Niall in for a long time lmao. 
> 
> And I stole Gansey's thing from one of the last episodes of the Clone Wars. I just couldn't think of who to put in for Gansey's ghost, so I did that instead. Hope it was an okay choice. 
> 
> Orla was a lot of fun to write. And wasn't dark. Blue doesn't have many dark ghosts I don't think. And Noah's master is a OC, but probably won't come up a lot again. Henry's was super difficult too tbh. I hope I did okay there. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are always appreciated. Thanks a ton!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with another chapter! I was able to write this in between classes today, which is a miracle in itself. There is some violence in this chapter so be warned. Hope you all enjoy it! Also not edited or beta'd.

Adam felt like he had felt Kaansala tip on its axis. His head was spinning, making his thoughts like static, and his stomach was twisted into knots making him want to throw up all his insides. 

He stumbled to one of the walls of the original antechamber they had come in from and leaned against it. He tried to catch his breath, but it was still coming out in short gasps. He screwed his eyes shut to help dispel nausea that had overcome him suddenly. 

_ It was not real. Dad has no hold on you anymore _ , he chanted to himself. It had been his mantra since he was sixteen and on a transport ship to Coruscant.  The hallucination encounter still shook him up. And it would for a long time. 

Finally, he was able to take a deep breath and open his eyes. The chamber was still lit with the torches, and he saw the crew of the Camaro Pig dealing with having their world tipped. They were all shaken deeply by this place. This cursed place that Adam never wanted to step foot in ever again. 

He managed to push himself off the wall and stumble his way to the others. No one was talking to each other. 

“What the actual hell just happened?” Adam finally gasped out. His throat was sore, and he was parched. He needs water soon. 

Ronan turned towards Noah with a fire in his eyes. He was snarling like a wild animal with no place to escape.

“Yeah, Noah. What the fuck?” he growled. 

Noah looked the calmest out of all of them. Adam didn’t understand how. The Ducha Jedi just closed his eyes slowly and deeply inhaled and exhaled for a few long seconds. Then he turned to Ronan like nothing was the matter at all. 

Everyone had their attention on Noah. If anyone would have the answers to this hell they just went through, he’d have them. He was their only Jedi handy, even if they had only found out what seemed to Adam like forever ago. He wondered how long they had actually been inside their little worlds, and the temple itself. Adam wondered if time was somehow warped in this place that only existed to a few. 

“It was the Force,” was all Noah provided. Ronan didn’t like that answer and bristled more. 

“Explain that more airhead. How was it possible that I saw my father who has been buried six feet under for fifteen years?” he demanded through tightly clenched teeth. 

Adam mentally stored that little tidbit of information on Ronan into a little file in the back of his mind. Ronan was the most enigmatic of all the crew he had met so far. He has been the hardest to figure out. And Adam was the wariest around him. His energy screamed hostile to new people. 

Ronan’s harsh tone didn’t seem to bother Noah. His head dipped, making his white hair fall over his face and his shoulders slumped a little. Then he raised it to Ronan’s glare. 

“Jedi Temples are tricky. They often take on a life of their own because the Force is so concentrated in these areas. It’s why temples are built where they are. They are meant to help a Jedi become more in tune with themselves and the Force. This one happens to give hallucinations, and it seems it gave ones of our demons we haven’t conquered. It sensed the imbalance in all of us and forced us to face it head-on.”

Adam found Noah’s explanation dead on. His father had been the one demon who had followed him his entire life. Even when he traveled to Coruscant, or to Sahani. It was his voice that played the devil in his mind, making him second guess himself at every turn. 

He looked at the rest of the crew and wondered what they had all faced. He now knew that Ronan’s father haunted Ronan for some reason. And that his father was dead, and had been for quite some time. Fifteen years, which led to Adam wondering if his father had perished somehow in the nasty transition from the Republic to the Empire. Was he an enemy of the Emperor somehow? Adam had a million questions. 

Henry stepped forward, hiding his shakiness well. He clasped his hands together and gave a grimace to all of them. “Well this has been a wonderful learning lesson, I guess…” he drifted off, “but I’d prefer to get the hell out of here now.” 

Everyone agreed in unison. Adam wanted out of this place before the Force or whatever sucked him back into some other nightmare situation he did not want to face at the moment. The entire trip to the Kaansala system drained him of nearly all his mental capacity. He wanted off this hell world soon. 

Noah lifted the monolith entrance stone again and they all shuffled out. Adam took a deep breath of the fresh air grateful to be out. He looked up towards the sky past the canopy of trees. He could see the different crescents of the moons fading from the sky which was no longer an inky black but fading to a purple and blue. The sun would rise soon enough. 

“Adam lead us out of here,” Gansey said. 

Adam nodded his head and they started to walk the way they had come. He didn’t think he’d miss the forest, but anything was better than being in the Jedi Temple. He enjoyed the crunching of leaves and grass underneath his feet. Occasionally birds would call to one another signaling the beginning of an early day. It kept his mind at ease. 

He didn’t know how long it had been since they started to walk. 

“Everyone scatter!” Noah screamed as he ran his way past Adam, which startled him greatly. 

Ronan didn’t hesitate and dove behind a bush, and Gansey, Henry, and Blue followed his lead. Adam was frozen from the surprise of Noah’s scream. He watched Noah thrust his arm forward and drag it back with his hand in a tight fist closed tightly. Through the air, something flew and fell to the ground at Noah’s feet. Noah turned back, his gray eyes wide when he saw Adam still standing there. 

“Adam get back!” he shouted. 

“Why?” he questioned. 

He shook his head and picked up the object. “Just do it!” Then he whipped around and the object ignited with a loud _whiz_ and a beam of red light came out. Adam tripped and fell to the ground. 

Someone burst through the bushes with another lightsaber. Their outfit was pitch black and they had a mask that covered their entire face. Noah met their lightsaber with the one he picked up. 

Adam got up and joined the others who watched with awe and horror. He thought he was hallucinating again. But it was actually happening. Noah was fighting with someone who had not just one lightsaber, but  _ two _ . Adam had only seen one in a passing glance when he was a young child. But it had only been the hilt. He had never seen one ignited before. It was magnificent. 

“I never thought Noah would be able to fight like that,” Henry whispered in awe. 

Adam didn’t know Noah that long, but he silently agreed. Noah was the easiest going of the crew, Adam quickly figured out. 

“He needs help,” Ronan said. 

Adam turned to him. In the early morning light, the shadows elongated over his face making him more dangerous looking. 

“You’re right,” Blue agreed. She took out her blaster and cocked it. Gansey quickly put a hand over hers before she could take aim. 

“No! You don’t have a clear shot.” 

Blue looked angry but conceded because Gansey was right. There was too much movement going on between the two of them. She didn’t want to accidentally shoot Noah instead of whoever that was. Ronan crawled over Gansey towards a tree. Adam followed his movement with curiosity. 

“What are you doing?” he asked. 

“Something to help him,” Ronan replied. Then he slumped against the trunk, crossed his arms and closed his eyes. 

“What the hell are you doing? Sleeping is the opposite of helping,” Blue hushedly exclaimed. 

“Sargent shut the fuck up. I need to concentrate.” Then Ronan screwed his eyes tighter. 

For a moment, nothing happened. Adam thought Ronan really had fallen asleep. Then, he started to glow. Or his back started to emit a glow, and it went over his shoulders where Adam knew a tattoo lay. The glow wasn’t very bright, but it was noticeable and light blue. It reminded Adam of hyperspace tunnels. 

“Whoa,” Adam let out. 

“I’ve never seen this before,” Gansey breathed out. 

All of them were fixated on Ronan’s glowing tattoo. Adam wanted to know why it was glowing. Then suddenly, something came from nowhere and just into being. The glow of Ronan’s tattoo faded and Ronan was rigidly still in his position against the trunk of the tree. A few seconds later Ronan inhaled deeply and hunched over clasping whatever it was that fell into his lap. 

He sat back up and examined the item. Adam couldn’t tell what it was exactly. 

“Ronan, what just happened?” Gansey finally asked in shock. 

Ronan looked up with a glare that Adam thought standard. “I brought something to help Noah.” 

Gansey shook his head in disbelief. “Your tattoo...it glowed. And where did this thing come from?” 

Ronan grit his teeth and stood up. “There’s no time for questions, Dick. Noah is currently out there fighting some black demon with dual lightsabers. I said I was going to help Noah, and now I am.” 

He left no more room for questions and started to walk away somewhere. He didn’t even disclose a plan to the rest of them. 

“Ronan Lynch, always full of surprises he is,” Henry sagely said. 

Adam snuck back up to the bushes and peaked his head. He couldn’t see where Ronan went. But the fighting was still going on. 

“AGH!” Noah screamed in agony. The red lightsaber had slashed his arm causing a cut on it. 

But he still kept fighting. Adam didn’t know how much longer he could last. He wanted to help, but he was basically useless. He didn’t have any weapon. 

Just as he was trying to figure out how to help Noah, the familiar rustle and whispers came to him. He looked around quickly to see if it was coming from somewhere, or if anyone else could hear it. No one seemed to. It was just Adam. The whispers were still coherent, but he could sense something behind the words. Just as he did in the Temple. 

He closed his eyes. For a moment, he tried to block out the rest of the world. “What do you want?” he whispered. 

The whispers seemed to go deeper inside him this time. He couldn’t fathom to explain the feeling, but he knew. He was hearing them, even in his deaf ear, but he also could feel the Force inside of him. Like it was reaching down into his soul. The words weren’t a language he understood, but he understood what it wanted. 

Adam opened his eyes and stepped out into the open. He felt calm, calmer than he ever had in his life. Then he kneeled on the ground. Noah had maneuvered in the fight to face Adam. 

“Adam! What are you doing!” he shouted as he blocked his opponent again.

Adam spoke, but the words didn’t come from his thoughts. “You are not welcome here.” His voice projected catching the opponent in black’s attention. The fight stopped. 

“I go where my mission takes me. The Jedi are to be extinct, and I am to find the survivors and kill them in the name of the Empire.” The voice behind the mask was deep and mechanical. 

“This is above the Jedi and Empire. Those who do not respect the forest are not welcome in it,” Adam continued. 

Noah’s eyes were wide with shock. He was breathing heavily. Adam then put his hands on the ground, spreading his palms open wide. He closed his eyes and focused on the balance of Kaansala’s system. 

“Begone!” he declared. When Adam opened his eyes, vines were wrapped tightly around the black assassin. They were suspended in the air above the ground. 

“Ronan, now!” he shouted. This was from him. 

Ronan came out of the bushes and shot the assassin point-blank through the mask. The vines immediately crumbled and dispersed, dropping the assassin onto the ground. Noah extinguished the lightsaber and walked over the dead assassin. Gansey, Henry, and Blue came out of the bushes. All of them were shell-shocked. 

Adam felt he was waking up from a daze. He remembered all that happened, but it wasn’t clear. He couldn’t believe what had just occurred. Adam walked over towards the limp body, observing it. There was a single hole through the center of the mask. The Imperial insignia was on the arms of the suit. 

“What is that thing anyway?” Blue asked looking down. 

“Inquisitors,” Adam responded. He knew of them. When he was apprenticing during his days at the Academy, his superiors talked about them in a negative sense. Complained about having to take command from them if necessary. 

Adam had been taken off world from Coruscant once. To the world Faitan, in the mid-rim. His boss had been required to take a look at some Imperial designs for future ships and brought Adam with him to shadow. He remembered his boss watching over some cadets who were stationed there closely. He and another superior officer talked in hushed tones. But Adam had caught the words _force-sensitive._ Adam remembered being surprised by hearing those words but didn’t dare say anything. 

Then he remembered an Inquisitor coming and taking the cadet off somewhere. At the time Adam didn’t think anything of it. And neither did anyone else. 

From afar, Adam didn’t recognize the armor and look of the Inquisitor. He was too surprised to think clearly at all. But up close it was obvious. 

“An Inquisitor? Like the Jedi Hunters?” Gansey inquired. 

Adam nodded his head. Noah looked queasy. His blue skin had turned practically white. 

“I thought they were a myth,” Henry said. 

“Well, the galaxy is full of surprises,” Adam retorted. He knelt down and put his hands on the sides of the mask. He felt for the release button, and when he did he pressed down. The mask let out a hissing sound before slackening off the face. It was heavier than Adam expected it to be, but he pulled it off with ease and threw it on the ground. 

The face underneath the mask was human and male. And the face was forever in a frozen state of shock. Brown eyes were wide with a single blast hole through his forehead. Noah let out a gasp. Everyone turned to face him. 

“Do you know him?” Adam asked. 

Noah ran his hands over his face and through his white hair. Then he ran off to the bushes to throw up. It lasted a few minutes, no one daring to go over to him. When he was finished, he walked over, his face still white. Adam repeated the question. 

“He used to be my friend, in the Order.I thought he was dead,” he muttered. 

“Who is he?” Ronan demanded, his arms were crossed over his chest with the blaster gripped tightly in his hand. 

“His name was Bar. I thought he died in battle when we were placed on Alanskai during the Clone Wars. He had some sort of breakdown, and he betrayed me and the garrison under our command. I thought he had died in battle. We left him there after our retreat.” 

“Well he met the fate he deserved then,” Adam coldly stated. “But we need to get out of here. If one found us, that means more are probably coming.” 

Gansey nodded his head. “Agreed.” 

Noah bent over and picked up the two lightsabers. Adam watched him tinker with them before grabbing something in his hands. When he stands up he looks at all of them. 

“Kyber crystals. The heart of the lightsabers. They’ve been corrupted by Bar, which is why they turned red. I can use them to get them back into the natural state, and create a new lightsaber for me.” 

“Fascinating, truly fascinating,” Gansey said leaning forward to glimpse at the crystals. He then turned to all of them. 

“We have a lot of questions that need answering. But we need to get off planet first. Adam, please lead us back.” 

Adam nodded his head and took the lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! Dun dun, Whelk made a brief appearance! I didn't make him a major character because he was kind of a minor villain in the series, so he is a minor one in the story. I also had to add drama somewhere :) And now you know Ronan can still take things out of his dreams! Hope you all liked it. Comments and kudos are always welcomed and highly appreciated by yours truly. Until next time! Thanks everyone!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back from the dead with this story! I just saw Solo today, and I will say I did enjoy it quite a lot. Was it my favorite? No. But it was not bad either. And it had the best plot twist! If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. 
> 
> I've also just been super busy with school, finals, and then making a big move for my summer job at Disney World, and then also working crazy hours! So I've had no time for myself lol but today was my day off and I was able to write some more of this fic for everyone! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it! This was not beta'd or edited so all mistakes are mine.

Adam had quickly decided for all of them that they were not going to Ka’anna City again. He was not in the mood to deal with the border patrols again, only to be belittled by those who felt more entitled than himself. Plus, he just needed to get off this planet. 

Unfortunately for him though, was the Camaro Pig was back to being docked at the port city on Kaan, because of the travel from the planet to the moon drained the ship and it needed to be recharged overnight. Leaving them stranded on the largest of the four moons of Kaansala. Adam was not about to go back out into the port though. It was even worse at night. 

So much had happened in such little time. It seemed like it had been months since he had defected from his Sahani post, but it couldn’t have been more than three days at most. How fast life can change. Adam was still deciding whether or not he had made the right choice. 

The crew had congregated again in the booth where there was a little kitchenette in this Naboo yacht. Adam had made sure he placed himself on the outside so he could leave when he wanted instead of being trapped inside. He was feeling trapped on this ship enough already. 

The scene in the forest kept replaying itself in his mind, like a holo on loop. The inquisitor, Ronan pulling some sort of blaster out of thin air, the forest whispering to him. It was all too surreal for him to handle. If he had been alone to witness it, Adam would’ve brushed it off as some fever dream. 

The pulse of energy he felt in that forest had dulled to a hum inside his veins. It was like by stepping foot in that sacred place, something had woken up inside of him. Perhaps, if the acolytes hadn’t been purged along with the Jedi by the Empire and clones, he could’ve become one himself. It would’ve beaten working in the wheat and barley fields. And he would’ve been taken away from his father to train in the forest and temple. 

“It seems that we’ve had to have a lot of talks about secrets recently,” Gansey said, breaking Adam out of his thoughts. 

Of course, he was the one to break the tense silence that was swallowing all of them up. He was the leader of this de facto group of vagabonds. The group that Adam felt a tentative companionship towards. 

Adam looked at him. His hazel eyes were troubled, but he was doing a good job of hiding it. He looked more rumbled than Adam had seen him in the brief time he’s known him. Gansey seemed to be at a loss. 

He flicked his eyes towards Ronan who was on the other end of the booth opposite of Adam. His arms were tightly crossed over his chest, and he was tense. His scowl was deeper than usual, which in Adam’s opinion, was saying something. When they had made it back to the ship, he watched Ronan smash the blaster he made into oblivion before tossing the scraps out. Adam could sense his anger strongly. 

Noah was tense as well, but much more subdued. He was curling in on himself, and he was practically invisible against the booth cushions, using his ability to make himself feel small. His white hair was the only part that didn’t shift and stood out. 

He heard Gansey let out a huff. “Well, where do we begin? I have all night, you know.” 

Gansey turned towards Ronan. He clasped his hands cordially on the table, but he looked hurt. 

“Ronan, what the hell?” he finally demanded. It was the curtest Gansey had sounded. Adam was surprised, and so was everyone else. Even Ronan arched an eyebrow. 

After a staredown, Ronan relented with a grunt. “What about it?” he said gruffly. 

Gansey balked a little. “What--, what about it? How about everything! Ronan, I have known you for half my life, and I had no idea that you were Force-sensitive!” 

“Don’t say that phrase,” he retorted sharply. 

Adam found that curious. But he wasn’t in the right to be asking Ronan any questions when he would probably be next. So he opted to just stay silent, and watch the sparring match between the two men instead. It seemed to be working for everyone else on the crew. 

Gansey shook his head, his thumb rubbing furiously over his bottom lip. His face was pinched up, and Adam to his mild annoyance found that he looked good even with that expression. Adam then looked down at his hands instead, trying to ignore his traitorous thoughts. 

“But it’s true!” he exclaimed. “How did I never realize?” That seemed more for himself to answer. 

Ronan scoffed. “I was sworn to secrecy. But the Empire still fucking found us anyway.” Adam sensed the pain behind those words. The Empire had taken something from everyone it seemed.  

“My entire family had it,” he continued, “except Declan.” That seemed to be an afterthought. Adam did not know who Declan was.  

Adam snuck a look at Gansey again. He was openly balking now, his mouth hanging down. “ Sworn to secrecy? Your entire family?” 

“Have you been sleeping under a rock, Gansey? You’ve met my family and have been to Somna Majia,” Ronan scoffed. 

“Is that your homeworld?” Adam butted in. He couldn’t help himself. He had never even heard of that place. 

Ronan whipped his head towards Adam, his blue eyes glaring. “None of your fucking business.” 

Which Adam took as,  _ yes that is my homeworld _ . Just in a very hostile manner. Adam nodded and then kept quiet once more. Gansey’s face had morphed into one of deep concentration. He let out a humming noise. 

“Well, Somna Majia has always been such a magnificent place full of some of the greatest natural landscapes I’ve seen on my journeys. Now it makes sense that the Somnaji are Force-sensitive beings.” 

Somnaji, Adam thought to himself. That was what Ronan was, his native species. Even the name sounded mystical. It fit Ronan and his glowing tattoo and ability to conjure up objects out of thin air. 

“How do you do it?” Gansey finally asked the million credit question. They had all seen Ronan close his eyes and then a blaster had been in his hands. They were all missing some crucial link in between those two steps. 

Adam saw all pairs of eyes on Ronan. His lips formed a sneer. Adam recognized a defense mechanism when he saw one. But he could see Ronan realized that he would not be leaving until his friends got an answer out of him. 

“I dreamt the blaster, and then I took it.” 

Blue shook her head. “What does that mean?” she demanded. 

“It means exactly what I said. I dream things and then sometimes I take them out,” he grit out. 

“But  _ how _ ? You can’t just take things from dreams,” Noah added. He had finally re-emerged from his camouflage of the booth seat to lean forward and look at Ronan. His gray eyes were curious.

“Before I met you I didn’t think near-humans could change their genetics to fit in with different environments. Sargent over here comes from a family of witches, and Parrish has glowing eyes and super strength and some plant powers or something. And apparently, some can take shit out of their dreams, because I can. And so did my father. Noah, you’re a fucking  _ Jedi _ . The galaxy is fucking big,” Ronan retorted. 

Adam silently disagreed with him having plant powers. That was some fluke of crazy circumstances. He was not Force sensitive in the way Ronan was talking about. His glowing eyes and strength were an accumulation of generations of inter-species breeding and evolution. They weren’t “gifts” from the Force. 

He also picked up on the fact that he did not answer the first part of Noah’s question. Ronan was trying to evade talking about it. But his friends weren’t stupid. They seemed to know the ins and outs of Ronan. And Ronan knew it too. He sighed and ran a hand over his bristly head. 

“When I close my eyes, I go into this dreamscape. It’s a forest that my father and I used to go to, right outside the Barns near Somna. When I go there the trees whisper to me in my language, and I ask for something. Then it appears. To take it out of this scape I need to be able to feel it and imagine every detail as if it were real. And if I do, I wake up and take it with me. That was how I got that blaster.” 

Gansey had a look of wonder in his eyes. “That is truly magnificent. And only you are able to go into this dreamscape?” 

Ronan shrugged his shoulders. “As far as I know.” 

Then he got up and left the room without any preamble. They all sat around the table for a moment before Gansey then turned his attention to Adam. Adam felt dread curl up into his insides and his hearts beat wild. He did not want to be questioned any further. He’d dealt with it enough in the past day and a half, or however long it had been since he’d been with this crew of the Camaro Pig. So Adam decided to beat Gansey to the punch. 

“Before you say anything, I don’t know what I did in that forest that caused the Inquisitor to become immobilized enough for Ronan to shoot him. I just know it spoke to me, and then I became its mouthpiece.” 

Henry had an eyebrow arched in excitement. “What did it say to you?” 

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know. It was not in a language I am familiar with. But somehow I understood what it wanted. I felt the balance of Kaansala in my bones.” 

Henry let out a humming sound. “How interesting.” 

Then he beamed and reached over to clap Gansey on the shoulder. “Who knew you had a knack for picking up some great Force-sensitives, RG-three. Well, this ship isn’t going to fix itself. I’m gonna check up on her now.” 

“I think it would be wise if we all got some sleep,” Blue suggested. Adam did not have to be told twice. He was exhausted. 

* * *

 

When Adam finally woke up from his sleep, he walked around the Camaro Pig to see if he could find anything to drink to cure the dry mouth he had acquired. Eventually, he came across a storage unit and when he opened it it was holding an array of things that seemed to be overflowing against each other. All the items were labeled with initials, and he even saw a strongly worded note about  _ not eating my food, damn it! I paid for it!  _ And underneath that:  _ with what money? _ And then underneath that:  _ the ones I wiped your ass in Sabacc with! _

Adam did not know whose handwriting it belonged to, but he was amused by it nonetheless. It was a small thing that really displayed the camaraderie on the ship between crewmates. But it also served as a reminder that Adam was not one of them. And he knew deep down, he wanted something like this. He wanted this type of friendship. And he had stumbled upon a group and had been through deadly situations already. And he wanted to be a part of this friendship they had; if they would let him in. 

He maneuvered past the various bottles of alcohol that comprised of most drinks, and instead reached for an amber liquid inside a clear bottle. He opened the cap and sniffed it quickly, to determine if that was also some kind of liquor. It was not, and the scent smelled just like the mangopears that were on Kaansala. He knew immediately that this was Golden Sunrise, a juice blend that many considered a morning drink on Kaansala and other worlds. He rustled around the cupboards to get a cup for himself and pour some of the Golden Sunrise. When he took a sip it tasted just as heavenly as he remembered it to be. It had been years since he’d had this drink.  

The only other time he had had this drink was when one of the Humansali he was working for as a house servant had given him a little teacup of it. The Humansali woman was elderly and mostly spent her days in a rocking chair. She had taken a liking for Adam and had offered him some for doing such a great job. 

The drink tasted like the mangopears, with starapple and honey to sweeten. It was good cold, but Adam knew it would be better heated up. So he turned on a burner in the kitchenette and heated it up. He blew the steam off the cup and the warmth filled every cell in his body when he took the sip. The name was accurate, Adam would assume this is what a sunrise would taste like. 

“It never occurred to me to heat up Golden Sunrise,” Blue’s voice came. 

Adam startled, not hearing her come in. Some of his drink spilled onto his hand causing him to curse and wipe it on his clothes. Blue was leaning against the door, an amused smile on her face. Then she pushed herself off and made a grabbing motion with her hand. Adam cocked his head. 

“C’mon. Let me try some.” 

It was such a strangely friendly gesture. This was the type of things friends did with each other. Not near strangers. And especially not when Blue had been hurtling startling accusations against him just only a few days ago. Adam was hesitant. 

“What changed?” he asked. 

Blue rolled her brown eyes. “Life and death situations happened. Now,” she said, her eyebrows rising underneath her fringe. Adam finally acquiesced his cup into her hands. Her eyes closed and she inhaled the drink before taking a sip. Her face lit up afterward. 

“Wow! This is so much better hot! Where’d you learn this trick?” 

She gave the cup back to Adam who took another sip of his own to avoid answering the question. But Blue was stubborn. Or so she seemed to be from what he’s observed from his crazy few days with the crew. 

“A Humansali woman gave it to me like that as a reward for working well as a kid,” he confessed. 

Blue didn’t say anything else but she nodded her head like that made all the sense in the world. She opened up the storage unit herself and grabbed her own drink. One that was deep purple but had white dots threaded in between. Adam nodded his head towards it. 

“What’s that?” 

Blue didn’t bother to grab a cup for herself. Instead, she hopped on to the counter like she did it regularly and took a swig. The liquid left her lips stained purple. She let out a refreshed sound. 

“Galaxy Mist, the best kind of chocolate drink you will find. The purple chocolate comes from Blasooine in the Outer-Rim. Sweet but with a spicy kick to it.” She held out the bottle in an offer but Adam shook his head no. The heavy drink did not appeal to him. He stuck to his Golden Sunrise. 

They sat in a relatively comfortable silence for a while. But Adam was still burning with questions. So he finally asked her some. 

“How long have you been a crew for?” 

She took another sip of Galaxy Mist and wiped the remnants off her lips with her arm. “A few standard years I’d say. It’s hard to tell when you’re traveling from place to place for so long.”

Adam nodded his head. That made sense. There was technically a standard galactic calendar, but it was hard to stick to it when all the planets under the Empire’s jurisdiction all had different yearly rotations around their stars. It would never match up properly. 

“And you’re not part of the…” Adam hesitated, “Rebellion?” he finally finished. 

He said it like it was an unspoken word. Some of his Imperial training would take longer to wipe away than others. Adam feared the Rebellion but also admired it from afar. They looked like the Rebellion type, but they didn’t have the same fire that he’s heard about. 

Blue pursed her lips. “Not really. I mean, in some ways we are. I mean we are going after illegal objects from the Republic. But actually part of the Rebellion, with the capital R? I don’t think so. We don’t go actively looking for battle like some cells do. We just float around.” 

She took another sip. Wiped her lips again. And then threw her hands dramatically. “But if we do get in the crossfires of some Rebel battle, will we fight the Imperials?” she asked rhetorically. She looked Adam right in the eyes. 

“You bet your ass we will.” 

The look in her eyes was daring Adam to challenge her. Like she still had the sliver of doubt; that he’d turn them all into the first Imperial officer he sees. Adam did not say anything in return. His Golden Sunrise had gone cold. 

The sound of something crashing to the ground started them both out of their staring contest. They both looked to the area of the sound. But they could not see who had done it, or what had fallen. 

“What the fuck do you mean we’re going to Somna Majia?!” Ronan bellowed.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always accepted and appreciated by me. :)

**Author's Note:**

> and that it for this part! I hope you liked reading about it. Sahani is a completely made up planet, and I kind of wanted it to be like a Tatooine vibe, but like not actually Tatooine. I couldn't think of a name for Gansey's ship, and Pig didn't seem to do justice to the wonder that is the Star Wars universe, so I just added the Camaro part in.
> 
> Don't throw eggs at me for making Adam an Imperial! It's all part of the characterization; think of him as a kind of Finn guy (obviously not the same characterization). If any of you are curious and want to scream with me about this au, or Star Wars in general, you can hit me up on my tumblr:   
>  magicianparrish.tumblr.com  
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated and welcomed by me! And they give me the inspiration to continue on and create for you all! Thanks, everyone! May the Force be with you.


End file.
